Law&Crime Sidebar - Rapper Takeoff's Death Probe Heats Up as Quavo's Sister Vows to Find Killer

Episode Date: November 15, 2022

The investigation into rapper Takeoff's death has progressed since the late-Migos star was shot and killed on Nov. 1. A member of the rap trio and Takeoff's uncle Quavo's sister publicly called for justice, stating she vows to find his killer. The Law&Crime Network's Jesse Weber and retired Houston homicide detective Fil Waters break down the developments in this case.GUESTS:Fil Waters: CrimeCon2022LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergVideo Editing - Logan HarrisGuest Booking - Alyssa FisherSocial Media Management - Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaCoptales and CocktailsThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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as the artist's aunt makes a public plea for help. Retired Houston homicide detective Phil Waters explains what could be happening and what to expect. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber. We're looking for any information. at this time, any videos, any information. We do know that the media has received a lot of phone calls, text messages, Twitter, tweets, vines, videos. We need all of y'all to send those to us so we can solve this case. So we wanted to provide an update for you in the case that we covered on a previous

sidebar, and that is the shooting of rapper Takeoff, a member of the hip-hop group, Migos. Now, Takeoff, whose real name is Kersenik Kari Ball, was shot to death two weeks ago out in Houston, Texas. This is something that happened in public. It was when he and another member of the group, his uncle Cuevo, they were playing dice at a party outside of a bowling alley. There was a crowd of dozens of people when the shots rang out, really chaotic event. And they had just held takeoff's funeral. It was attended by Cardi B, offset, Justin Bieber, Drake, Cuevo. But here is the strange thing. There have been no arrests. No word on the killer from investigators. No identification has been made public. I will tell you this comes now as Cuevo's sister has posted on

Instagram the following, quote, find out who did this to my nephew by any means. Let me bring in retired Houston homicide detective Phil Waters. He is considered one of the world's leading expert interrogators. Detective Waters was one of the original members of the Houston Police Department's gang murder squad. In nearly five years in that capacity, he maintained over a 96% case clearance rate, having worked over 140 gang related homicide cases. Phil, great to have you here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for asking. No, it's our pleasure and really our honor to have you on because there's a lot of unanswered questions here, including the fact we don't even know if this is gang related. We don't even know why this happened. Are you surprised two weeks out that we haven't

really heard anything? I will say haven't heard anything. The mayor, Mayor Sylvester Turner, said that Houston police are making progress. He says, I'm pleased with the direction in which this investigation is going. What does I tell you? Well, it is not. uncommon for an investigation to proceed slowly, especially when it's involving this type and for lack of a better turn, this type of demographic. So the mayor saying that would indicate to me that having been involved in these types of investigations, high-profile things that are not moving as long as fast as the public or the family would like them to move. There are things going on behind the scenes. I can tell you that I know those guys in the homicide murder squad with the gang

unit that still exists, and those guys are not one to sit still, and they will move as quickly as the evidence lets them move. So to say that there is some information, homicide detectives have that they're not sharing at this point in time, would be accurate, and that would think would prompt the mayor's comment. Are you surprised that the chief of police, Chief Finner, declined to comment on what's happening in the investigation? No, I think that he's got to remain in this particular type of investigation, I think he's got to remain, he's got to defer to, he didn't want to get up there and stand and just say a bunch of stuff at a press conference that really means nothing. And that would for people that are wanting this to move forward

very quickly, it's not like on television. This stuff doesn't get solved in an hour. And I think that's, that's wise for the chief to defer to the mayor, let him make the comments because the chief is busy monitoring the progress of the detective. I guess people's confusion is this happened in a public area. There were a lot of people there. Some of this was actually recorded on cell phone footage. You would think that they would have gotten an arrest in one day, two days, but something's going on and were always struck by what the comments were in that initial press conference, where they were encouraging people to speak up, and if you have information, come forward. Do you think this is a case where maybe people are not speaking out? Well, that's exactly the problem.

having been involved in these types of investigations. And look, there may be a, you know, we're talking about a group of rappers and then we're kind of putting it up against the type of investigation that would be conducted with gangs. There's, in terms of the investigation itself, that's kind of a distinction without a difference. And so the fact that you have a lot of information and you have a lot of witnesses, it makes complete sense to me that they're not getting people that are stepping forward because that is the

nature of the beast, if you will. And so finding cooperating witnesses in that particular atmosphere is difficult. And it's going to take somebody that's willing to step forward and just make sure that justice is served. I mean, you know, his sister, she's right. She's, she's, somebody needs to come forward and start talking about what happened. Well, are you concerned by what? what Cuevo's sister, this takeoff, Sant, wrote, find out who did this to my nephew by any means. Does that give you a little bit of concern what that might do? Or is that more of just an expression of frustration and not really a call to arms or something like that?

I think it, I think it's both. I am a little disturbed by that particular comment, because in today's world, I think everybody would interpret that to mean maybe not what she intended it to mean, but to mean what it implies. And that's dangerous. I can tell you in the world of rappers, I mean, you can go back to Tupac Shakur and all those kinds of things. And that is kind of the nature of that type of investigation, that type of an event. And so her saying that it's going to be interpreted differently by those folks that are going to hear that and are on that side of that issue.

So that is, I think that needs to be toned down. It's going to give some people that are going to hear that. They're going to go, okay, yeah, let's go. And let's hope and pray there's not something silly going on, like a bounty and that kind of thing. Well, I guess does it put pressure on the police department to solve this quicker, right? You know, if they're not, because obviously there's a balance here, right, with how much investigators can reveal about an investigation without compromising the investigation. And so I'm worried people might interpret that as, oh, they're not doing anything.

What you're telling me, I mean, that's not the case. So are you concerned that statements like this, and if it's not solved within the next day or week or month, this is going to put pressure on the police department and maybe have people take justice into their own hands? Well, the short answer is yes. I mean, it's going to put pressure on the police department, but I can tell you that it's not going to put any more pressure than they're already under. with something like this happens, I can tell you, having been there, that they want to get this thing, those homicide detects at HPD want to get this thing solved as quickly as possible, just to stave off any kind of retribution, that kind of thing. And that may be left for later.

It's going to be interesting to find out who the suspect is. There are these factions within the rapper world and within the gang world that they're in constant conflict with one another. And so when the piece is breached, then that just provides the platform for further violence. And we don't even know if takeoff was a target of what happened. We're not even sure exactly what happened. So if you were in the position of leading this investigation right now, what would be some of the things that you would be doing? I mean, would you look into the entire history of takeoff? Would you look at what he was doing for the past year?

Would you look at his associates? What would you do about the camera footage, the people at the party? How would you even know where to begin? and where would you have like to see this investigation go? Well, you're going to have to, obviously, they're going to make that scene. The scene is going to talk to them. They're going to talk to however many witnesses will be willing to speak with them. That's the big problem here that I see.

You had so many people there. You had this stuff that was documented on phones and so forth and so on. It's finding that one or two witnesses that we want to give you some sort of information. Then you're going to do a psychological autopsy on takeoff himself. You're going to find out what his background is, who his friends are, whose enemies might be, what's been his experience, who was gathered at this particular event, and who of those people, friends and foe might have been there. Was there anything on the street about some sort of conflict between takeoff and some other folks? So there's a whole broad aspect of just research and trying to get as much historical information as you possibly can. Phil, before I send you off, I also think about talking about maybe there's a lack of information, what happens if there's too much information, right? So let's say you have all these people at the events. As I said, there was dozens of people there. Could the police department be fielding a million calls about this and trying to weed out what's what? Who's telling the truth? Because I figure that might be a situation too. And how would police actually deal with that?

Well, there could be, we don't know. I won't put a number on it, but there could be many, many calls coming through crime stoppers. And each one of those clues that comes through crime stoppers will have to be reviewed and will have to be exhausted. There's going to be a lot of stuff. They're going to be people just calling in. I heard something. They don't really know anything. And so that will, whatever that real information is, it's going to be all in a big basket.

and they're going to have to, the detections will have to sift through all of that item by item, weed out the stuff that's no good, pick up the stuff that looks like it may be a credible lead. And we should remember, we talk so much about the investigation and what's happening there. This is such a human story. This is such a really sad and tragic story. And to give everybody a sense of that, Cuevo posted about this. And he shared his thoughts about his nephew.

And he said, quote, he never worried about titles, credit, what man got the most shine. That wasn't him. He didn't care about none of that as long as we brought. brought it back home to the family. Phil Waters, thank you so much for taking the time to break down what might be happening behind the scenes. And if we have an update in this case, we'd love to have you back on to talk about it. Sure.

And that's all we have for you, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us here on Sidebar. Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you get your podcast. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time. You can binge all episodes of this Law and Crime series ad-free right now on Wondery Plus. Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.