Authorities believe the assassination-style murder of law student Brandon Woodard in broad daylight earlier this month was the result of a tremendous, high profile drug deal gone terribly wrong, according to DNAinfo.com.
The site reportedly spoke to police who said the killers were in fact part of a Queens drug gang that had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for a large cocaine shipment from Mexico coming through a Los Angeles gang. The product, however, failed to arrive, says the Huffington Post. When the Queens crew got wind of the failed transaction, it lured Woodard - who police think was acting as some sort of middleman or courier - to his death on a busy street in midtown Manhattan.
"The Los Angeles guys thought they were tough, and could f-- with the boys from New York," one source told "On The Inside."
"They screwed with the wrong people," the source said.
Those same unnamed sources claim the case has now grown into a much larger investigation.
"It is really not a homicide investigation," one source said. "It has become a major narcotics case involving a big operation and substantial money, perhaps millions of dollars."
"The DEA is providing intelligence and resources to the NYPD about drug trafficking here and on the West Coast, and into possible connection reaching to drug distributors out of the nation of Jamaica," sources said.
Woodard was fatally shot in in an active, tourist-heavy area of Manhattan, and the killing "certainly appears to have been planned," Police Commissioner Kelly said. Kelly added that based on security videotape, detectives suspect Woodard was lured into an ambush.
Police Commissioner Kelly said Woodard arrived in New York from Los Angeles at Kennedy Airport around 5 p.m. Sunday and then checked into the Thompson Hotel around 6:30 p.m. That evening he watched a football game with a female friend and they then went for dinner at a close by restaurant, said Kelly
Monday, Woodard left his hotel just before 1:30 p.m., telling the concierge he would pick up his luggage later. Of course, that never happened.
According to police the entire murder was captured on CCTV.
"In the video, the gunman wanted in the shooting death yesterday of Brandon Lincoln Woodard, 31 of Los Angeles, is seen 10 minutes before the shooting," said the NYPD in a statement.
"The shooter, who appears to be bald and may have a beard, exited a late model Lincoln sedan, initially bare-headed, but soon pulled the hood of his jacket over his head. Ten minutes later, at approximately 2:00pm, the shooter walked up behind Woodard and fired. In [a still from the video], the gunman is seen behind Woodard a moment before the shooting, pulling the weapon from his jacket pocket."
"The victim was walking westbound on West 58th Street," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said. "The shooter walked up behind him and shot him at close range."
Los Angeles and Las Vegas police departments have confirmed Woodard had a long history of run-ins with the law. Woodard was reportedly charged with criminal and drug charges 20 times, and was due back in court in Los Angeles on Jan. 22 following an April arrest in West Hollywood for felony cocaine possession. He had previously pleaded not guilty.
The Queens gang in question looks to be the same group police were already investigating based on a connection between a cell phone tracked in Woodard's killing and a horrific murder in Queens when three men who had been at a party in Brooklyn thrown by a local party planner were ambushed, and shot at with 63 bullets from an AK-47. The cellphone police tracked is registered to the party planner, a source revealed to the New York Daily News.
Police have reportedly identified the getaway driver, and are very close to identifying the shooter as well, the Huffington Post reports.
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