DECATUR, Ga. — Silentó, the Atlanta rapper recognized for his hit music “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae),” pleaded responsible however mentally in poor health Wednesday to voluntary manslaughter and different prices within the 2021 capturing dying of his 34-year-old cousin.
The 27-year-old rapper, whose authorized title is Ricky Lamar Hawk, was sentenced to 30 years in jail, DeKalb County District Lawyer Sherry Boston mentioned in an announcement.
Hawk additionally pleaded responsible to aggravated assault, possessing a gun whereas committing a criminal offense and concealing the dying of one other. A homicide cost was dropped as a part of the plea settlement.
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DeKalb County police discovered Frederick Rooks III shot within the leg and face within the early morning hours of Jan. 21, 2021 outdoors a house in a suburban space close to Decatur. Police mentioned the discovered 10 bullet casings close to Rooks’ physique, and safety video from a close-by residence confirmed a white BMW SUV rushing away shortly after the gunshots.
A member of the family of Rooks instructed police that Silentó had picked up Rooks in a white BMW SUV, and GPS knowledge and different cameras put the automobile on the website of the capturing.
Silentó confessed about 10 days later after he was arrested, police mentioned. Ballistics testing matched the bullet casings to a gun that Silentó had when he was arrested, authorities mentioned.
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Rooks’ brothers and sisters instructed DeKalb County Superior Court docket Decide Courtney L. Johnson earlier than sentencing that Silentó ought to have gotten an extended sentence, The Atlanta Journal-Structure reported.
The rapper was a highschool junior in suburban Atlanta in 2015 when he launched “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” and watched it skyrocket right into a dance craze. Silentó made a number of different albums, however mentioned in an interview with the medical discuss present “The Doctors” in 2019 that he struggled with despair and had grown up in a household the place he witnessed psychological sickness and violence.
“I’ve been fighting demons my whole life, my whole life,” he mentioned in 2019.
“Depression doesn’t leave you when you become famous, it just adds more pressure,” Silentó mentioned then, urging others to get assist. ”And whereas everyone’s you, they’re additionally judging you.”
“I don’t know if I can truly be happy, I don’t know if these demons will ever go away.”
Silentó had been struggling within the months earlier than the arrest. His publicist, Chanel Hudson, has mentioned he had tried to kill himself in 2020.
In August 2020, Silentó was arrested in Santa Ana, California, on a home violence cost. The subsequent day, the Los Angeles Police Division charged him with assault with a lethal weapon after witnesses mentioned he entered a house the place he didn’t know anybody in search of his girlfriend and swung a hatchet at two folks earlier than he was disarmed.
In October 2020, Silentó was arrested after police mentioned they clocked him driving 143 miles per hour (230 kilometers per hour) on Interstate 85 in DeKalb County.
Hudson mentioned on the time of Silentó’s arrest within the killing of Rooks that he had been “suffering immensely from a series of mental health illnesses.”
