Paying tribute to Baby Chino, an aspiring rapper from Miami who was gunned down in a daytime ambush minutes after leaving the city jail on Wednesday.
The 20-year-old vocalist, whose real name is Timothy Starks, was arrested by Miami-Dade officers at 2 a.m. in Opa Lock, Florida on Tuesday after they pulled him over for driving with a closed license plate. While searching his car, the police found a fully loaded Glock 32 handgun.
He was released on bail on weapons charges and left the Turner Guildford Knight Correctional Center at 2:00 p.m. Wednesday.
He was picked up by Dante’s friend Collins Banks in a red Nissan. As they turned onto the Palmetto Expressway, an armed man from another vehicle opened fire on them in the middle of traffic.
Starks was shot in the head and died on the spot. Banks was shot in the stomach and taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital, where he remains stable.
Detectives did not identify the suspect, but told the Miami Herald that “a dark-colored vehicle was seen leaving the area at high speed.”
Starks was only identified Friday as the victim of the shooting.
Upon learning of his death, one fan tweeted, “Damn they killed little Chino as soon as he came out.”
Another wrote: “It’s crazy how Baby Chino died, someone watched his ass get out of jail.”
“Detectives are looking into every motive or every bit of information based on the evidence they have here at the scene,” Miami-Dade Police Detective Angel Rodriguez told local television station WPLG. “As you can see, there are a lot of bullet holes in the car.”
Law enforcement sources told the Herald that the shooting is being investigated for links to a series of public ambushes in recent months believed to be linked to Miami street gangs.
It was believed that Starks was involved with a gang known as “Boss Life” in Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood.
In his most famous song, a track called Big Haiti Shottas, he and his entourage rap about violence at a local apartment building.
The lyrics include the lines: “Find ’em, I found ’em / If it’s a problem or a problem, we’ll pull up with those helicopters / We’ll leave him dead on the spot / Damn, he doesn’t. to the doctor”.
The accompanying music video was dedicated to Gary “Melo” Laguerre, an 18-year-old teenager killed in a drive-by shooting in 2020.