By Yuriy Andriyashchuk
Hip-HopVibe.com Staff Writer
Pop Smoke’s memory continues to live on almost six months after he was shot and killed in Hollywood Hills in February. His posthumous debut studio album, ‘Shoot For The Stars Aim For The Moon,’ was released in July and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart with 248,000 copies in its first week.
Prior to Smoke’s death, he was being investigated for a stolen Rolls Royce that he was allowed to use. He was arrested after landing at JFK Airport. The vehicle was eventually found in Arizona. According to the New York Post, while the Brooklyn rapper was being spoken to by police about this, he was also asked about a non-fatal shooting that went down in 2019 involving Brooklyn’s 823 Crips in the Canarsie area.
Smoke reportedly refused to snitch on them as his lawyer, Peter Frankel, said “Any conversation with Pop about cooperation was a very short one. It’s something he would never entertain doing.” Smoke ended up being charged with six state charges, including criminal possession of stolen property. If he gave up that information, that probably wouldn’t have been the case. He also refused to speak about a shooting that went down in Jamaica, Queens in January. Smoke ended up being released on $250,000 bond.
“They hoped the force of the federal indictment would persuade him to cooperate — meet and speak with them,” Frankel continud. “It’s not uncommon for the federal government to become involved in an investigation when they believe that doing so will help them in a way a state court prosecution may not be able to do.”
Four people have since been charged in Smoke’s murder. Two of them were men while the others were teens. The adults could face the death penalty when convicted.
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