Jay-Z was arrested for illegal gun possession near a Manhattan nightclub early Friday, police said. The rapper, whose real name is Shawn Carter, was arrested with three other men shortly after 3 a.m. when a loaded handgun was found in their car, said a police spokeswoman, officer Cheryl Cox. Undercover officers say they saw a man armed with a gun getting into the 2001 Chevy Suburban outside Club Exit in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood on the West Side. Cox did not know which man was carrying the gun. Police stopped the car less than a block away and found the gun, and the four passengers were charged with third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, Cox said. Along with Carter, 31, police arrested Hamzah Hewitt, 39, Romero Chambers, 43, and Tyran Smith, 28. The four were scheduled to be arraigned later Friday. Friday’s arrest was not Carter’s first run-in with law. He was indicted last January for allegedly stabbing a record executive during a nightclub brawl. The rapper’s “Vol. 2 … Hard Knock Life” won the Grammy for best rap album in 1999. The arrest comes less than a month after a jury acquitted rap mogul Sean “Puffy” Combs and his bodyguard, Anthony “Wolf” Jones, of gun possession and bribery charges from a Dec. 27, 1999, shooting inside another Manhattan nightclub. Three people were injured.
Jay-Z was arrested for
illegal gun possession near a Manhattan nightclub early Friday,
police said.
The rapper, whose
real name is Shawn Carter, was arrested with three other men
shortly after 3 a.m. when a loaded handgun was found in their
car, said a police spokeswoman, officer Cheryl Cox.
Undercover officers
say they saw a man armed with a gun getting into the 2001
Chevy Suburban outside Club Exit in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood
on the West Side. Cox did not know which man was carrying
the gun.
Police stopped
the car less than a block away and found the gun, and the
four passengers were charged with third-degree criminal possession
of a weapon, Cox said.
Along with Carter,
31, police arrested Hamzah Hewitt, 39, Romero Chambers, 43,
and Tyran Smith, 28. The four were scheduled to be arraigned
later Friday.
Friday’s arrest
was not Carter’s first run-in with law. He was indicted last
January for allegedly stabbing a record executive during a
nightclub brawl.
The rapper’s “Vol.
2 … Hard Knock Life” won the Grammy for best rap album
in 1999.
The arrest comes
less than a month after a jury acquitted rap mogul Sean “Puffy”
Combs and his bodyguard, Anthony “Wolf” Jones, of gun possession
and bribery charges from a Dec. 27, 1999, shooting inside
another Manhattan nightclub. Three people were injured.
