Family says lax security allowed killing of rapper Drakeo
ABC News
A lack of security allowed dozens of men to ambush rapper Drakeo the Ruler, who was beaten and stabbed to death backstage at a Los Angeles music festival
LOS ANGELES -- A lack of security allowed dozens of men to ambush rapper Drakeo the Ruler, who was beaten and stabbed to death backstage at a Los Angeles music festival, his family and their lawyers said Thursday.
Drakeo, 28, an acclaimed West Coast rapper whose legal name is Darrell Caldwell, was stabbed to death on Dec. 18 while he was backstage waiting to go on at the Once Upon A Time in LA festival at Exposition Park, which also featured Snoop Dogg, Al Green and 50 Cent.
“How did these people get through? How did these people get access, backstage, to an artist?” Tianna Purdue, the mother of Caldwell’s 5-year-old son, said at the news conference announcing a planned wrongful death lawsuit. “Where was anyone? Where was anyone there to help him?”
Video played at the news conference of the moments leading up to the stabbing, which his attorneys called a “targeted assassination,” showed men in red pouring into into the fenced-off backstage area and attacking Caldwell and his small entourage. No security guards or police officers can be seen. Caldwell, who had knife wounds to his neck, died hours later at a hospital, authorities said.
