Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) have identified a person of interest in the shooting and subsequent death of rapper PnB Rock.
PnB Rock – real name Rakim Allen – died on Monday, September 12, from injuries he sustained after being shot during an attempted robbery at Roscoe’s Chicken & Waffles restaurant in South Los Angeles. He was 30 years old.
On Wednesday (September 28), Freddie Lee Trone was named by LAPD as the alleged gunman in the murder of Philadelphia-born Allen.
Trone has not yet been apprehended and is considered “armed and dangerous”, though LAPD have requested the public’s help in locating him. Trone’s son, 17, the alleged getaway driver, has been arrested. A woman, Shauntel Trone, was also confirmed by police to have been arrested on suspicion of accessory to murder.
According to Rolling Stone, Trone – whose past alias was “tiny night owl” – has a past criminal history, inclusive of a 2002 robbery arrest and a 2005 felony charge for threatening a person.
Allen was shot several times during the robbery attempt, and taken to hospital where he was later pronounced dead. He had been dining at the eatery with his girlfriend, who had shared a location-tagged photo in a since-deleted Instagram post.
Her post then prompted police to investigate whether the post could have prompted the attack that led to Allen’s death.
In a Twitter statement honouring the late rapper, Nicki Minaj seemingly criticised Allen’s girlfriend for tagging their location in her photo, comparing Allen’s death to that of Pop Smoke in 2020. “After Pop Smoke there’s no way we as rappers or our loved ones are still posting locations to our whereabouts,” Minaj wrote. “To show waffles & some fried chicken????!”
Many online rejected the notion that Rock’s girlfriend was responsible for his death, and criticised those placing blame on her while grieving the loss of her partner.
Hitting back hard at the suggestion, Cardi B tweeted that she “highly doubted” the alleged assailant determined PnB Rock’s whereabouts from his girlfriend’s Instagram. “It’s very irresponsible and inconsiderate to blame her for something so tragic,” she wrote. “We should be sending nothing but love to her and his family at this time.”
Earlier this week, a man wrongly implicated in Allen’s murder spoke out to clear his name. Emmanul Danquah, a Minneapolis-based videographer and media personality, had been involved in two unrelated arguments with Allen via Instagram Live last year.
Though the arguments and Allen’s murder are not linked in anyway and Danquah is not a suspect, the days following Allen’s death saw a recirculation of the pair’s arguments across YouTube and social media, often with titles implying or outright claiming Danquah was the killer.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” Danquah said during an interview on the Drea O Show. “I wasn’t there, I didn’t make an ‘OG phone call’ or anything.”