Rapper Pop Smoke gunned down in Hollywood Hills home

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-19/up-and-coming-rapper-pop-smoke-killed-in-hollywood-hills-home-by-masked-gunmen-police-say

A group of people, including one wearing a mask and armed with a handgun, burst into a posh Hollywood Hills home early Wednesday and fatally shot up-and-coming rapper Pop Smoke, police said.

The Hollywood Hills home is owned by Teddi Mellencamp of “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills” and her husband, Edwin Arroyave, according to property records. Mellencamp wrote on Instagram that she was informed about the shooting early Wednesday by a third-party leasing and management company that oversees the rental property.
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Last month, a federal grand jury indicted the rapper on a count of transporting a stolen vehicle across state lines. Prosecutors in New York alleged in court documents that Pop Smoke stole a $375,000 Rolls-Royce Wraith in Los Angeles. It was later found at his mother’s home in New York. He had pleaded not guilty to the charge.

During a hearing in the case in Brooklyn last month, a federal prosecutor said the government believed that Pop Smoke was a member of a street gang affiliated with the Crips, according to a court transcript.

Because Pop Smoke is considered by law enforcement to be affiliated with a street gang, authorities say his slaying is considered a gang-related homicide. Detectives also suspect the assailants are probably gang members, but it has not been determined whether the killing was motivated by gang rivalry, officials said.