Photo: Claudio Lavenia/Getty Images
An 18-year-old man confessed in juvenile court Friday to fatally shooting rapperPop Smokein 2020.
TheLos Angeles Timesreportedthat the defendant, who was 15 at the time of the crime, alsoconfessed to home-invasion robbery and alleged discharge of a firearm, in addition tofirst-degree murder of the musician, born Bashar Jackson, in his Hollywood Hills home.
The defendant will serve time in a state juvenile facility until he turns 25, the publication reported.
According to theLos Angeles Times, L.A. County Superior Court Judge J. Christopher Smith told the 18-year-old and his 19-year-old co-defendant that Jackson “lost his life over no good reason.”
“You have no right to take somebody’s life. You have no right to take somebody’s property,” Smith said, per theLos Angeles Times.
Pop Smoke.Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty
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A 20-year-old manpreviously confessed to entering Jackson’s home with the intention to steal from him. Smith sentenced the 20-year-old defendant to four years and two months in the Secure Youth Treatment Facility, theLos Angeles Timesreported.
Three other men were charged, one of whom was a minor at the time of the crime.
According to police, the four suspects allegedly broke intoa Hollywood Hills home where the rapperwas staying, resulting in Jackson being fatally shot in February 2020.
Captain Jonathan Tippet, who oversees the LAPD’s Robbery-Homicide Division, explained to the Associated Press at the time that the suspects stole items from the home and arebelieved to be members of a south Los Angeles gang.
Tippet said neither Jackson nor his entourage who were staying at the rental home was believed to be affiliated with the gang.
A Brooklyn native, Jackson found success in 2019 whenNicki Minajappeared on the remix of his hit single, “Welcome to the Party,” from his debut EPMeet the Woo.Hisposthumous debut album,Shoot for the Stars Aim for the Moon, was released on July 3, 2020.
source: people.com
