By Canadian Press

Police investigating rappers’ ties to shootings around Miami

May 13, 2019 | 10:14 AM

SUNNY ISLES BEACH, Fla. — Miami area law enforcement agencies are looking for connections between a series of weekend shootings that killed one rapper, wounded another rapper’s girlfriend and hit three bystanders, killing a man who was leaving work to be with his family on Mother’s Day.

“There are a lot of unanswered questions,” Miami-Dade police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta told reporters.

By Monday morning, police were questioning at least seven people detained after the Sunday afternoon shooting outside Trump International Beach Resort Miami, where 19-year-old Kaylyn Marie Long was wounded. The Miami Herald cited a witness in identifying her as the girlfriend of NBA YoungBoy.

The gunfire in Sunny Isles Beach also killed 43-year-old Mohamad Jradi, who was sitting in his van across the street from the resort. The Herald reported that Jradi was just leaving work to celebrate the day with his family when a bullet struck him in the head. Another bullet grazed a 5-year-old boy who was treated and released by paramedics at the scene. Long was taken to a hospital for treatment.

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NBA YoungBoy, whose real name is Kentrell DeSean Gaulden, was on Sunday’s lineup of performers at the weekend’s Rolling Loud Music Festival at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens.

Investigators seized several firearms found at the resort and issued a Be On the Lookout bulletin for a silver GMC Yukon seen at the site of the shooting, Zabaleta said in a news release. Later Sunday, the vehicle was stopped as it tried to enter the parking lot at the music festival, and police detained four men inside.

In a separate but nearby shooting about the same time as the gunfire at the Trump resort, one person was wounded by bullets at the entrance of the William Lehman Causeway, which spans the Intracoastal Waterway and links Sunny Isles Beach to Aventura.

Detectives said several cars also were struck by bullets outside the Trump resort.

The multiple crime scenes jammed traffic on a busy Mother’s Day, and capped a busy weekend for police.

On Saturday, Chicago rapper AAB Hellabandz, 24, whose real name was Ameer Golston, was fatally shot outside the Cameo nightclub on Miami Beach. A second person was taken to the hospital in that shooting. So far, no arrests have been made.

Other incidents at the festival included the Saturday arrest of rapper Kodak Black, whose real name is Bill Kapri, on a weapons charge, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. It adds to a lengthy rap sheet for Kapri, 21, whose initial appearance was scheduled for Monday in federal court in Miami. Black was most recently arrested last month on drugs and weapons charges as he crossed from Canada into the U.S. near Niagara Falls, N.Y. Court records don’t list a defence attorney.

Meanwhile, rapper Lil’ Wayne said on social media that he refused to perform to avoid a search by security personnel or police outside the venue.

Lil’ Wayne, whose real name is Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., has sold more than 100 million records worldwide.

“To all my fans who came to see me at Rolling Loud, I’m sorry but I won’t be performing. The Festival Police (not Rolling Loud) made it mandatory that I had to be policed and checked to get on the stadium grounds. I do not and will not ever settle for being policed to do my job,” Lil’ Wayne said on Twitter.

According to his Twitter post, Lil’ Wayne later performed at the Story nightclub in Miami Beach.

The Associated Press