Ray Jacobs, a singer who co-wrote successes for Justin Bieber and Dj Khaled, had just left a West Adams bar when a Silver Chevrolet Impala and a White Mercedes-Benz SUV shot next.
The flash of mouths broke out open windows of cars, said an officer of the Los Angeles police department during a hearing last month.
Jacobs, 31, who played under the name of August 08Was killed on August 26, 2023, in what prosecutors claim was a case of erroneous identity.
The alleged shooters – members of the Rollin '30s Harlem Crips – thought that Jacobs was associated with the Black P -Stones, said a gang of Bloods Rival, said a prosecutor at the hearing.
Jacobs was not affiliated with any gang – but the prosecutors said he was wearing a baseball cap with a red edge.
The theory of accusation on the reasons why Jacobs was targeted is a return to a more violent time. Los Angeles – And in particular, the district of West Adams where Jacobs was killed – is a much safer place than it was in the 1990s, when the city saw more than 1,000 homicides per year.
With modern gang beefs that often started like spots on social networks and spreading in targeted violence, blind shootings are less common.
Lawyers representing the alleged killers argued that there was no evidence, just speculation about the color of a hat, to suggest that Jacobs was confused with a gang member.
But in the account of the accusation, the case of Jacobs shows the gentrification and the homicide numbers in fall did not change the fact that a young black man can always be killed for having worn the bad color in the bad neighborhood.
Jacobs, who grew up in Long Beach and Lynwood, succeeded in 2015 by co-writing the tube “I'm the One” with Bieber and Khaled.
A first member of the Music Collectif 88rise, Jacobs published his first Solo EP, “Father”, in 2018, reported Le Times. Later, he signed with Def Jam Recordings, which produced an LP 2022, “Seastick”, which included collaborations with Jhené Aiko, Schoolboy Q and Joji.
In a statement after his death, the Jacobs label called him a “brilliant songwriter, an accomplished musician and a singular artist”.
A few hours after Jacobs' death, officer Daniel Ivan of the Los Angeles police service went to 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 Johnny's bar, a point of beer and wine attached to Johnny's pastrami. The longtime sandwich, which closed in 2015, reopened five years later as part of a revitalization of the West Adams district.
Just before the bar closed, said the friend, he and Jacobs walked two women whom they had met that evening in their cars. As they crossed the street, the friend heard shots – 15 to 20 shots, Ivan said. Shot in both legs, he hid behind a trash can. Jacobs tripped, then collapsed.
The friend did not see the shooters, testified Ivan.
Using surveillance images, Ivan determined that the killers were driving a Sport Impala and Mercedes-Benz utility vehicle. The registered owner of the Impala was Garey Marshall, then 42, said the officer. The SUV was rented through the Turo car sharing application to the girlfriend of Grady Montgomery, then 34, according to Ivan.
Marshall and Montgomery are members of the 1930s Rollin, 'said the officer.
Ivan said the cars and the two men were captured on a surveillance video at Martin Luther King Jr. park, a meeting place for the 1930s, shortly before Jacobs' death.
Marshall and Montgomery were seen in the park with white shirts, said Ivan, and the surveillance video, although granular, showed that the shooters wore white shirts. Marshall telephone files showed that he was heading for West Adams before Jacobs was killed, according to Ivan.
Gabriel de Alba, an officer of the LAPD who watched the 1930s, testified that the gang had started in the 1970s as a group called armed sponsors. Its territory now extends from Jefferson to King Boulevards and avenue Normandie in Crenshaw Boulevard, said from Alba.
De Alba testified to support an improvement in gangs against Marshall and Montgomery, who pleaded not guilty of having killed Jacobs and tried to assassinate his friend.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman authorized prosecutors to file the improvements – which increase prison conditions if the prosecutors prove that the crime benefited a gang – after his predecessor, George Gascon, prohibited his use.
The Rollin enemies of the 1930s include the pony stones, which claim the area where Jacobs was killed, said from Alba. The p black stones often carry red, although of Alba has declared that the gangs are no longer color code as strictly as they have done.
Zino Osehobo, lawyer for Marshall, said it was pure speculation that his client was even in the murder of Jacobs, and even less that he was a shooter.
“I can't even call for circumstantial evidence,” he said by asking the judge of the Superior Court Craig Veals to reject accusations of murder. “This is a case based on hypotheses.”
Deion Benjamin, who represents Montgomery, said that there was “no evidence” to support an improvement in gangs. The simple fact that someone was killed in a place that a gang may consider that their territory does not make a gang crime, Benjamin told the judge.
Veals did not agree, judging that he had seen enough evidence for Montgomery and Marshall to be tried for murder and attempted murder with the improvement of gangs.
It was “completely plausible” that the defendants confused Jacobs and his friend with rivals “given the color of the hood in question,” said the judge. “Of course, there are problems here. This is a circumstantial case. It is not weak by any section.”
