Arrest Made in Death of Migos Rapper Takeoff
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Houston police arrested a 33-year-old man and charged him with murder in connection with the death of Migos rapper Takeoff.
Patrick Xavier Clark was arrested last Thursday evening in Houston and has since been charged with the murder of the rapper born Kirshnik Khari Ball. In court Monday, Clark’s attorney claimed that his client was innocent.
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Letitia Quiñones, one of Clark’s attorneys, told reporters that Clark was “nervous and concerned” about being charged with the rapper’s murder, because “he believes he’s innocent,” according to the Associated Press.
When asked by reporters if Clark knew the late Migos rapper, the attorney said, “We really don’t want to go into the facts at this point,” describing Takeoff’s killing as a “tragedy.”
“There is a lot of investigation that needs to be done,” Quinones said, per AP. “So, we just ask that everyone keep an open mind and let the system do its part and let the Constitution do its part and that is, right now he’s innocent until he’s proven guilty.”
Prosecutors believed that Clark was attempting to leave for Mexico after getting an expedited passport and acquiring a “large amount” of money. Quiñones said that Clark “wasn’t trying to go anywhere.”
Rolling Stone confirmed that Clark was also part of a 2018 shooting investigation in Houston, Texas.
Another individual, 22-year-old Cameron Joshua, was arrested in late November and charged with unlawful carrying of a weapon, though he is not believed to have fired the weapon at the time of the shooting.
A search warrant affidavit that led to the arrests notes that Quavo was seen arguing with both Joshua and Clark outside of 810 Billiards and Bowling in downtown Houston, at which Houston PD received a call of a shooting on Nov. 1 at about 2:34 a.m after a private party at the venue had ended.
The document states that of the individuals seen discharging weapons in the reviewed video evidence, Clark was the only one whose physical positioning aligns with the angle at which Takeoff was struck before collapsing to the ground. According to a report obtained by Rolling Stone from the Harris County Medical Examiner, Bell’s cause of death was listed as “penetrating gunshot wounds” to both his head and his torso.
Clark is said to have been holding a wine bottle during the shooting, which was later used to identify him after he left the item at the venue House of Blues, where he went immediately after firing shots, only to have returned to the bowling alley shortly after before fleeing again, according to descriptions of the surveillance footage. Fingerprint matches on the bottle were discovered after it was collected for evidence.
The search warrant affidavit suggests that the altercation began after Willie Bland, said to have been part of Quavo’s camp, threw a punch after the rapper walked away from an argument with Joshua and Christopher Watkins. “He believed that Joshua said something and began pulling a gun, so he reached out and punched him,” the document reads. “Bland advised that he thought that the males were about to try and rob Quavo.”
Sgt. Michael Burrow shared: “I can tell you that takeoff was not involved in playing in the dice game. He was not involved in the argument that happened outside. He was not armed. He was an innocent bystander.”
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner added: “More than an entertainer, he was a son, a brother, a cousin, and a friend and a mentor to those in the music industry. At that time, we also asked witnesses to help police identify Takeoff’s killer and prevent more violence from happening in retaliation. I am glad that I suspect has been arrested and charged with Takeoff’s death. It certainly, I think, will bring some comfort to the family, though it does not bring Takeoff back.”
Burrow mentioned that while there were more than 30 individuals outside of the venue following the shooting, “literally every single one of those people left the scene without giving a statement to police.” Since then, the department has located a number of those individuals, however they request that more come forward to aid in the ongoing investigation.
“Essentially, we had to rely on a large volume of video surveillance evidence that came in and cell phone videos, and audio things that surfaced over time in some cases, that weren’t available immediately,” Burrow added. “We had to sift through all of that and use physical evidence and use shooting reconstruction and confirm a lot of our ballistic evidence of what weapons were involved.”
According to an earlier report from police, the private event, attended by about 40 people, ended around 1 a.m., though the party continued for another hour until it was cleared out. Local news outlet KHOU noted that security guards were in the area when the shooting started but did not see who pulled the trigger.
“I want to express my regret and disappointment that this was a case of another young man taking the life of another young man for no reason,” Turner added. “The gun violence everywhere – not just in the city of Houston – has to stop. People are dying for little or no reason and people are reaching for deadly firearms to settle sometimes minor disagreements. But pulling the firearm can have deadly consequences that you cannot undo.”
This story was updated on Dec. 5 at 3 p.m. to include comment from Patrick Xavier Clark’s attorney.
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