Four Dead After Brooklyn Musician Kills Band Members, Self
Published at
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(BROOKLYN, N.Y.) — A rock musician killed his three band mates, shooting them in the head and chest, before turning a high-powered assault rifle on himself early Monday morning in the East Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, N.Y., police said.
A fifth person was taken to a hospital with gunshot wounds to the arm.
The victims and the gunman were all Iranian expatriates and members of The Yellow Dogs, a self-described “psychedelic/ dance post-punk” band.
Police believed the gunman was motivated by a prior dispute with his band mates and may have recently been kicked out of the band for stealing equipment. The identities of the shooter and the victims were not immediately released.
Police arrived at the scene just after 4 a.m. Monday. On the second floor “a 27-year-old white male was discovered with a gunshot wound to the chest. On the third floor, a 35-year-old white male was discovered with a gunshot wound to the head as well as an additional adult white male, also with a gunshot wound to the head,” an NYPD spokesman told ABC News.
The shooter “was discovered with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on the roof of the location. A firearm (rifle) was recovered next to the suspect’s body,” the police statement said.
Members of the band fled Iran in 2009 and received asylum in U.S. last year, and have played at several prominent venues and festivals including South by Southwest in Austin, Texas.
“We can’t go back to Iran,” the singer, identified as Obash, said in a video interview posted to YouTube last year. Modern music is outlawed in Iran.
“We hear the music they play and sometimes have parties,” a neighbor Mirna Bonilla told ABC News. “They seemed normal. We’d see them going in and out of the house, but not fighting, nothing like this.”
Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio