On Monday, Florida police said they had arrested three people they think killed the rapper Foolio last month, but two are still on the run. All three were charged with murder.
Police in Tampa said in a statement that the killing was caused by a fight between two rival gangs.
He was shot and killed early June 23 in the parking lot of an uptown Tampa hotel. The rapper’s real name was Charles Jones. In the parking lot, police found two cars that had been shot at.
Online, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office said that three people were arrested on Saturday. Sean Gathright, 18, Alicia Andrews, 21, and Isaiah Chance Jr., 21, were named as the suspects.
Police say Andrews and Chance are charged with one count of first-degree murder with a gun and one count of plot to commit first-degree murder with a gun.
The cops say Gathright is charged with two counts of planned murder with a gun, three counts of first-degree attempted murder with a gun, and tampering with physical evidence.
“They are in the Duval County Pre-Trial Detention Center on murder charges until they can be sent to Tampa,” the sheriff’s office said.
Rashad Murphy, 30, and Davion Murphy, 27, are people cops say are still on the run. Each of them is charged with murder in the first degree and three counts of attempted murder in the first degree. Police did not say if the two are connected or not.
Police say that on the day Jones was killed, Chance and Andrews found him and followed him and his group to two different places.
Authorities say that they got out of their car at each place and Chance used a cellphone. Police say that after he used the phone, a second suspect car showed up at each place. They said that both cars then followed Jones to the hotel.
At the crime scene, one car drove by the victims’ stopped cars twice and then drove away. Three shooters then got out of one car and started shooting at Jones’ cars, killing Jones and hurting three others, police said.
Rashad Murphy, Sean Gathright, and Davion Murphy were named by Tampa police as the suspects.
The sheriff’s office in Jacksonville said that Jones was a part of the “6 Block” gang. The group is at odds with the “ATK” and “1200” gangs. Police say Chance is a member of ATK, Rashad Murphy is a member of 1200, and Davion Murphy is a friend of 1200.
ATK and 1200 are rival gangs of 6 Block. The fight has been going on for over ten years, and dozens of people have been killed on both sides, cops said.
It wasn’t clear right away on Monday afternoon if the suspects who had been taken had hired lawyers.
The sheriff’s office shared video of the three suspects being arrested and said the case is still going on.
In a social media post, Sheriff T.K. Walters said, “If you break the law in Jacksonville or any other city in Florida, there’s nowhere you can hide.”
When she spoke to the press on Monday afternoon, State Attorney Susan Lopez said, “All five of these defendants face life in Florida State Prison, even the ones who didn’t pull the trigger.” In Florida, if you help plan a murder, you can be held responsible for the death of the person, and that’s what we’re going to do here.
She said, “It is clear that they all had one purpose in coming to Tampa, and that was to kill.”
Lopez told everyone that murders are very hard on the families of the dead.
“His fans called him “Julio Foolio,” but his mom calls him Charles.” “We’re going to fight until she gets justice,” she said.
A video that Jones, 26, put on his Instagram story says that the night he was killed, he was enjoying his birthday. On the site, he had a million fans. He sent out a video about a pool party and told his fans to direct message him to get the address.
He wrote later that night that the cops had “shut us down and kicked us out” of their Airbnb rental.
One of Jones’s lawyers, Lewis Fusco, said in a statement that the man was attacked in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn after moving there. Jones wrote in April that he had already survived “MULTIPLE ATTEMPTS ON MY LIFE” along with news of the release of his newest album, “Resurrection.”
Since 2015, he has been making songs.