Silentó, the rapper known for "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)," has been sentenced to 30 years successful situation aft pleading blameworthy to charges related to his cousin's decease successful 2021.
The 27-year-old Atlanta rapper, whose ineligible sanction is Ricky Lamar Hawk, pleaded blameworthy but mentally sick Wednesday to voluntary manslaughter and different charges successful the shooting decease of his 34-year-old cousin. Hawk besides pleaded blameworthy to aggravated assault, possessing a weapon portion committing a transgression and concealing the decease of another. A execution complaint was dropped arsenic portion of the plea agreement.
In the aboriginal greeting hours connected Jan. 21, 2021, the DeKalb County Police Department recovered Hawk's cousin, Frederick Rooks III, suffering from aggregate gunshot wounds, with 10 slug casings recovered adjacent his body. He was pronounced dormant astatine the scene.
Security camera footage from a adjacent location showed a achromatic BMW SUV fleeing the country minutes aft the gunfire. Officers were capable to corroborate that the conveyance was the aforesaid 1 that Hawk utilized to prime up Rooks, according to the DeKalb County District Attorney's office.
Hawk was taken into custody connected Feb. 1, 2021, and during an interrogation with investigators, helium admitted to shooting Rooks. Ballistics investigating matched the slug casings to a weapon that Hawk had erstwhile helium was arrested, authorities said.
Rooks' brothers and sisters told DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Courtney L. Johnson earlier sentencing that Hawk should person gotten a longer sentence, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
The rapper was a precocious schoolhouse inferior successful suburban Atlanta successful 2015 erstwhile helium released "Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)" and watched it skyrocket into a creation craze. Hawk made aggregate different albums, but said successful an interrogation with the aesculapian speech amusement "The Doctors" successful 2019 that helium struggled with slump and had grown up successful a household wherever helium witnessed intelligence unwellness and violence.
"I've been warring demons my full life, my full life," helium said successful 2019.
"Depression doesn't permission you erstwhile you go famous, it conscionable adds much pressure," Hawk said then, urging others to get help. "And portion everybody's looking astatine you, they're besides judging you."
"I don't cognize if I tin genuinely beryllium happy, I don't cognize if these demons volition ever spell away."
Hawk had been struggling successful the months earlier the arrest. His publicist, Chanel Hudson, has said helium had tried to termination himself successful 2020.
In August 2020, he was arrested successful Santa Ana, California, connected a home unit charge. The adjacent day, the Los Angeles Police Department charged him with battle with a deadly limb aft witnesses said helium entered a home, wherever helium didn't cognize anyone, looking for his woman and swung a hatchet astatine 2 radical earlier helium was disarmed.
In October 2020, Hawk was arrested aft constabulary said they clocked him driving 143 miles per hr connected Interstate 85 successful DeKalb County.
Hudson said astatine the clip of Hawk's apprehension successful the sidesplitting of Rooks that helium had been "suffering immensely from a bid of intelligence wellness illnesses."
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