*Attorneys for rapper Troy Ave held a press conference outside of New York’s Irving Plaza this afternoon (Aug. 8) to announce that they are suing the venue and Live Nation — which owns the club — for poor security measures, reports Billboard.
The announcement comes two months after the May 25 shooting incident at the Lower East Side venue during a T.I. concert that left one man dead and three people injured.
“We made a decision that if not for their negligence, the incident would have never taken place,” lawyer Scott Leemon told Billboard about the claims he and his partners, John Stella and Marc Albert, are making in the suit. “They let someone into the facility with a gun, did not pat them down and that’s where this person coming in, [Troy] would never have been shot.”
Troy Ave. was arrested for reckless endangerment, possession of a weapon, and menacing after a video clip surfaced showing him firing a gun during the chaotic scene backstage. Last month, Troy Ave (real name Roland Collins) avoided a murder charge and pled not guilty in a Manhattan court room after a grand jury indicted him on second-degree attempted murder and four counts of criminal possession of a weapon.
Troy was arrested May 26 after the NYPD released an 11-second security camera video showing a man police identified as the rapper emerge from a backstage room at the club with blood on his leg and fire a gun in the direction of people fleeing. Police later found a gun that matched the ballistics taken from the scene in a “secret compartment” in Troy’s car, which had driven him to NYU Langone Hospital following the shooting.
The incident began before that in the venue’s green room, where a fight broke out that left Troy and two others injured and Ronald “Banga” McPhatter, Troy’s longtime friend and bodyguard, dead. Troy’s attorneys have said repeatedly that both their client and McPhatter were victims in the situation, and that McPhatter died a hero protecting his friend. Authorities have not ruled out the possibility of a second shooter, though they believe only one gun was involved and no other arrests have been made.
Troy suffered a gunshot wound to his right leg on the night of the shooting and has appeared in court in a wheelchair; he is currently free on a $500,000 bond.
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