Ray Jacobs, a singer who co-written for Justin Bieber and DJ Khaled, had just left a West Adams bar when a silver impala chevrolet and the SUV White Mercedes-Benz put themselves in charge.
The sparkles of snout exploded from the open windows of the cars, an officer of the Los Angeles Police Department testified at a hearing last month.
Jacobs, 31, who acted under the name of August 8, was killed on August 26, 2023, in what prosecutors claim was a case of wrong identity.
The alleged shooters, members of the 30-year-old Harlem Crips, believed that Jacobs was associated with black p-stones, a rival bang of Bloods, said a prosecutor at the audience.
Jacobs was not affiliated with any gang, but prosecutors said he wore a baseball cap with a red edge.
The theory of the prosecution of why Jacobs was attacked is a setback to a more violent was. Los Angeles, and in particular, the neighborhood of West Adams, where Jacobs was killed, is a much safer place than in the 1990s, when the city saw more than 1,000 homicides per year.
With modern gang calves often they begin as stuffed animals on social networks and extend towards specific violence, indiscriminate shootings are less common.
The lawyers who represent the alleged murderers argued that there is no evidence, only speculation about the color of a hat, to suggest that Jacobs was confused with a member of a gang.
But in the narration of the Prosecutor's Office, the case of Jacobs shows the gentrification and numbers of homicides of coransal have not changed the fact that a black young man can still be killed by using the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood.
Jacobs, who grew up in Long Beach and Lynwood, found success in 2015 co -writing the success “I'm The One” with Bieber and Khaled.
An early member of the 88 music collective, Jacobs launched his solo debut, “father”, in 2018, The Times reported. He later signed with Def Jam Recordings, which produced a 2022 LP, “Seasick”, which included collaborations with Jhené Aiko, Schoolboy Q and Joji.
In a statement after his death, Jacobs's record label called him a “brilliant composer, an consummated musician and a singular artist.”
Hours after Jacobs was killed, officer Daniel Ivan of the Los Angeles Police Department went to the Cedars Sinai Medical Center to interview the singer's friend, who had been injured in the same incident.
The friend said they had gone to the bar in Johnny's, a place of beer and wine attached to Johnny's Pastrami. The Sandwich stand, which closed in 2015, reopened five years later as part of a revitalization of the West Adams neighborhood.
Just before the bar closed, said the friend, he and Jacobs walked two women who had met their cars that night. While crossing the street, the friend heard shots: 15 to 20 shots, Ivan testified. Filmed on both legs, he hid behind a garbage can. Jacobs stumbled, then collapsed.
The friend did not see the shooters, Ivan testified.
Using surveillance images, Ivan determined that the murderers led an Impala and Mercedes-Benz sports utility vehicle. The registered owner of the Impala was Garey Marshall, then 42, the officer testified. The SUV was rented through the Turo Car-Sharing application to the Gray Montgomery, then 34 years, according to Ivan.
Both Marshall and Montgomery are members of the 30 years, the officer testified.
Ivan said both cars and both men were captured in surveillance video in Martin Luther King Jr. Park, a meeting place for the age of 30, shortly before Jacobs was killed.
Marshall and Montgomery were seen in the park with white shirts, Ivan said, and the surveillance video, although granulated, showed that the shooters wore white shirts. Marshall's telephone records showed that he traveled to West Adams before Jacobs was killed, according to Ivan.
Gabriel de Alba, a LAPD officer who monitors the 30 years, testified that the gang began in the 1970s as a group called armed sponsors. His territory now extends from Jefferson to King Boulevards and Normandie Avenue to Croww Boulevard, said De Alba.
De Alba testified to support an improvement of a gang against Marshall and Montgomery, who declared themselves innocent of the charges of killing Jacobs and trying to kill his friend.
Los Angeles Dist. Atty County. Nathan Hochman has authorized prosecutors to present the improvements, that prison conditions increase if prosecutors show that the crime benefited a gang, after their predecessor, George Gascon, prohibited its use.
The enemies of the 30 years include black p-stones, who claim the area where Jacobs was killed, said De Alba. The black pleas stones are often used reds, although Alba said that gangs are no longer color of the color code as strictly as they did.
Zino Osehobo, a Marshall lawyer, said it was pure speculation that his client was even in the murder of Jacobs, much less that he was a shooter.
“I can't even call it circumstantial evidence,” he said when asking the Judge of the Superior Court Craig Trimes to dismiss the positions of murder. “It is a case based on the assumption.”
Deion Benjamin, who represents Montgomery, said “there was no evidence” to support the improvement of a gang. The simple fact that someone was killed in a place that a gang possibly considers its territory does not make it a gang crime, Benjamin told the judge.
The lists did not agree, ruling that he had seen enough evidence for Montgomery and Marshall to be tried for positions of murder and attempted murder with the improvement of the gang.
It was “completely plausible” that the defendants confused Jacobs and his friend with their rivals “given the color of the cap in question,” said the judge. “Of course, there are problems here. It is a circumstantial case. It is not weak by any section.”
