Probe into Rapper Slim Dunkin's fatal shooting continues

Atlanta police Saturday continued to investigate the shooting death of rapper Slim Dunkin, who was gunned down in a Memorial Drive recording studio Friday after possibly getting into an argument with another person. 
Dunkin, whose real name is Mario Hamilton, 24, was  rushed to Grady Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Atlanta Police Major Keith Meadows said Saturday there have been no arrests and “we’re still talking to people, but the truth is we don’t know exactly what happened.” Meadow said  13 to 20 people were in the building when the shooting occurred, around 5:30 p.m.

Investigators were still piecing together the sequence of events.Meadows said that Hamilton got into a "verbal altercation"  before the video shoot and the person he was arguing with pulled out a pistol and shot Hamilton once in the chest.

Meadows said Saturday it's not clear whether the argument was over the video.

"Right now we're just trying to....identify who may have seen what, really just trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together," Meadows said. "It seems everybody witnessed something very different. We're just trying to go back and make sense of everything."

Police have not recovered the handgun that was used.

Hamilton, who lives in metro Atlanta, was an emerging rap star with growing connections in the industry. Music news website HipHopDX reported Saturday Dunkin was a childhood friend of Waka Flocka Flame and appeared on Gucci Mane and Waka's "Ferrari Boyz" album released over the summer.

Another industy website, TheBoomBox, reported that the Brick Squad affiliate was to appear in the "Push Ups" video for Mane and V-Nasty when he was shot.

Fans posted a memorial Facebook page, “Rest In Peace Slim Dunkin,” where comments were posted Saturday.

“Life is so cruel, people don't give a dam [sic] about no one not even themselves, you got people crying, because people are dying," read one. Read another: " “It shows you that you can't trust a soul on this planet one min you with that person next you at there funeral."more information...

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Source: http://www.ajc.com

13 Killed in Car Bomb Attack Outside Baghdad Prison

 A yellow taxi loaded with explosives blew up at the crowded front gates of a prison north of Baghdad on Monday morning, killing at least 13 people, many of them security guards or civilians waiting to visit jailed family members.

It was the third attack in less than a week and the latest in a deadly streakthat has killed about 50 Iraqis and further highlighted fears of increased insurgent attacks as the United States continues its military withdrawal from Iraq by the end of next month.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack on Monday, but the tactics used and the target involved — a suicide bombing in a crowd at a large government compound — suggested the work of the Al Qaeda affiliate in Iraq.
The American ambassador, James F. Jeffrey, told reporters on Sunday that there was a “good possibility” that the affiliate, Al Qaeda in Iraq, had been responsible for a bombing in the southern city of Basra on Thursday and for deadly explosions in Baghdad on Saturday. Military defeats inflicted by Iraqi and American forces have hobbled the Sunni insurgent group, but it still carries out about 30 attacks across the country every week, military officials have said.

“The Al Qaeda in Iraq organization is still active, particularly in the north, but they strike throughout the country,” Mr. Jeffrey said, although he added that security had improved in Iraq over all.

The taxi involved in the attack on Monday pulled up to a security post at the entrance to the Al-Hout prison in Taji, about 10 miles north of the capital, about 8 a.m. The entrance was crowded with visitors and security guards heading to work.

“Everything was on fire,” said Kadim Mohammed, a security guard who was wounded in the blast. “I saw two dead children.”

Security officials said four civilians, four prison employees and five people who had not been identified were killed. At least 28 people were wounded, including several religious pilgrims whose bus, bound for the shrine of Samarra, had been stuck in traffic near the prison entrance.

The explosion did not appear to be intended to breach the walls of the prison, which is set back from the roadside gates.

Separately, two civilians were killed by a bomb attached to their car in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Mansour.

A spokesman for the Kurdistani Alliance political bloc was also wounded when a mortar round hit a parking lot near Parliament inside the heavily secured Green Zone, government officials said. The fortified area houses the American Embassy and a number of Iraqi ministries and politicians’ residences and is frequently that target of rockets and mortars fired by Shiite militia groups.more information...

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Source: http://www.nytimes.com

Suspect held in fatal shooting at UIC Medical Center

Murder charges are pending for a hospital employee wanted for allegedly shooting a woman to death in the University of Illinois Medical Center hospital parking garage early Friday.

A campus police officer recognized him during a traffic stop on the heels of a multi-hour “roof to basement” man hunt at the Near West Side hospital.

The Cook County Medical Examiner’s office identified the victim as 48-year-old Angela Bonds-Roberts of 3400 block of S. Harlem in North Riverside. She was pronounced dead at the scene at 1:40 a.m.

About 6:31 a.m., a UIC police officer making a traffic stop at 14th Street and Damen Avenue recognized the occupant of the vehicle as the person of interest in the medical center slaying, UIC Associate Chancellor of Public Affairs Mark Rosati said.

The 47-year-old man was arrested near Hoyne Avenue and 13th Street after a brief foot chase, Rosati said. Police recovered the weapon allegedly used in the shooting in the 2200 block of West 13th Street, he said.

He has not yet been charged and will be taken to the UIC Police headquarters for processing, Rosati said.

Police first responded after a gunman allegedly shot the woman about 11:40 p.m. in the garage 1800 block of West Taylor Street, officials said. Police initially thought he may have headed back into the hospital, prompting police to respond to the incident as a barricade situation.

A source said both the man in custody and the victim worked as maintenance workers at the hospital. As the woman was walking toward the parking garage after her shift had ended, the man approached her and fired shots, striking her in the head and torso.

Fire department crews were able to reach the woman shot, Chicago Police Sgt. Al Stinites said, but she was dead at the scene.

A “massive response” and police search did not turn up any indication that the shooter ever re-entered the hospital, Rosati said in an earlier press conference outside the hospital.

“A very large presence of Chicago and UIC police have conducted a very thorough, room by room, top to bottom, roof to basement search of the hospital going through multiple times and have found no sign that anyone was there who shouldn’t be, Rosati said.

Sources said the woman was in the head with a long-barreled handgun. She was also employed at the hospital, and the shooter was a housekeeper employed by the hospital for 15 years, according to Rosati, who said he had knowledge of the hospital grounds.

Chicago police had earlier recovered the gunman’s car near the hospital campus during the lockdown.

The hospital has resumed normal operations Friday morning, Rosati said. He would not comment on whether security cameras in the garage or the hospital may have captured footage of the shooting or the gunman.

No one else was reported injured and no one was taken hostage in the incident, officials said.

The hours-long search started to wrap up shortly after 5 a.m. Police made multiple sweeps through every room and through a network of tunnels connecting buildings on the hospital campus as a police helicopter beamed down a spotlight from above.

Police remain in the area Friday morning, searching the grounds around a building in the 1200 block of South Damen Avenue Friday morning looking for evidence. Police tape surrounds the side and backyard of the building.

Class is not in session at the nearby University of Illinois at Chicago campus because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but UIC officials kept students and community members updated on the situation through a series of text messages, e-mails and online alerts.more information...

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Source: http://www.suntimes.com