Justin Rodríguez, a teenager 18 years old, was arrested yesterday as the third suspect in a double homicide that occurred at a Manhattan recording studio in May.
Rodríguez, a resident of Staten Island (NYC), was charged in the fatal shootings of Devon Dillahunt (24) and Kamir King (34) in Midtown West in the early hours of May 5, authorities said.
In early July, two young New Jersey residents had been charged in the same case: Daniel Williams, aged 18, and Kabal Reyes (25), recalled Pix11.
King was found with a gunshot wound to the head inside a recording studio in 354 West 38th St. and Dillahunt was shot in the stomach outside of the 350 West building on that same street, authorities said.
Both men were taken by EMS paramedics to Bellevue Hospital, where they were pronounced dead. A gun was recovered near the area where Dillahunt was killed, police said.
NYPD had released photos of four suspects who allegedly fled the scene. One remains on the run. All charges are mere accusations and the persons prosecuted are presumed innocent until proven guilty.
In a similar case, at the beginning of June a young man from 21 years also died after being shot in the head in a recording studio in Queens. In February, Jayquan McKenley, a 18-year-old teenager just starting out in the world of rap, was shot to death as he left a recording studio in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, less than a week after the murder of another rapper in the same county of New York.
Last November, three men were hit in a shootout outside a recording studio in Midtown Manhattan (NYC) where a rap video was being filmed. Two groups exchanged at least ten shots near the intersection of West 38th Street and Fifth Avenue.
In NYC, armed violence continues unleashed in 2022, especially with young attackers and perpetrators, posing a great challenge to the new mayor Eric Adams, who since taking office in January has encountered obstacles within his own Democratic party and Black Lives Matter (BLM) leaders in dealing with the crisis.