A prosecutor showed jurors a series of surveillance videos on Friday that he said when taken as a whole make it clear A$AP Rocky fired a gun at his former friend in 2021.
Deputy District Attorney Paul Przelomiec gave a sober, straightforward presentation during opening statements in the trial of the hip-hop star, fashion maven and actor. It relied almost entirely on the video evidence and audio from a 911 call.
“What will become almost instantly clear is that this is not a complicated case," Przelomiec said.
The first video, captured from nearby but partly blocked, showed a physical struggle between two men — with two others intervening — outside a parking garage in Hollywood on the night of Nov. 6, 2021. One of them, wearing a black hoodie, pulls out a gun and points it, but does not fire it.
“The evidence in this case will show that the man in the black sweatshirt is the defendant, Rakim Mayers,” Przelomiec said, using Rocky's legal name. “That evidence will be uncontradicted.”
Rocky has pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of assault with a semiautomatic firearm, charges that could lead to up to 24 years in prison. His lawyers will give their opening statement later Friday.
Przelomiec showed two more videos of the moment from other cameras, minutes after the first confrontation, when he said shots were fired about a block away. One shows a scuffle between four men in a tiny image in the corner of the frame. The other, shot at the same time, captures two gunshot sounds.
He also played a 911 call from minutes later.
“There’s been a shooting,” a woman with an Australian accent says. “We watched it. There were four men, and they were kind of fighting."
The four men were all old friends, Przelomiec told the jurors. They had all been members of the A$AP Collective, a crew of creators established at a high school in New York around 2006.
Along with Rocky and two friends who were with him in Los Angeles for a concert performance, they included the accuser, A$AP Relli, whose legal name is Terell Ephron.
Ephron will testify that the two had been beefing. Ephron believed that when they met up near the W Hotel, they would argue but reconcile, the prosecutor said. That changed quickly when Rocky pulled out a gun. But Ephron still pursued him as he walked away.
"In his state of mind he never believed he was going to be shot," Przelomiec said.
Ephron was not seriously hurt. Przelomiec showed jurors a photo of tiny, bloody scrapes on Ephron's knuckles that he said may have come from the shooting, but that was irrelevant to the charges.
Przelomiec also showed text messages from about 90 minutes after the incident, in which Rocky denies anything happened.
“U try killing me,” a message from Ephron read.
Rocky responds, “wtf iz ut talking about.”
The defense plans to call witnesses to testify that a firearm seen on a security video is a starter pistol that Rocky carried as a prop for security.
And they will likely make hay of the fact that officers who searched the scene found neither shell casings, a weapon, or any suspects.
Ephron went to police two days later, and presented a pair of 9 mm shell casings he said he had picked up himself.
The prosecutor acknowledged all of this in his presentation, along with another fact the defense will dwell on: that Ephron wanted money from Rocky.
Ephron has filed a civil lawsuit over the incident, and Przelomiec showed a text message from him to another friend from shortly after the incident saying he was going to get Rocky's money because “he shot at me.”
The defense likely will say that is why, despite a search of the spot by many police officers, no shell casings were found at the site near Hollywood and Vine. Police did not recover a gun in the case.
Rocky sat in the courtroom and watched with his lawyers, wearing a gray suit. His mother and sister were among the supporters sitting in his section. Rihanna, his longtime partner and the mother of his two toddler sons, was not in court.
Rocky's lawyer says it’s unlikely Rihanna would appear in the courtroom during the trial and her name may not come up at all, though it did frequently during jury selection when many prospective jurors said they were fans.
Ephron will be the central figure in the trial, and the defense will seek to tear down his credibility.
“He’s the witness that this case will rise and fall on, for sure,” Rocky's attorney Joe Tacopina said after a recent pretrial hearing. “Whether he’s a star is something that remains to be seen.”
Andrew Dalton, The Associated Press
