OAKLAND — During the early stages of her burgeoning rap career, Alliauna Green spread a false rumor that she’d killed an abusive ex and been cleared by police.
The tragic, bitter irony is that prosecutors now say Green — known best by her stage name, Tan DaGod — died while protecting her boyfriend from deadly harm. Authorities say Green shot at a group of men who’d attended a grand opening for a beauty salon she was promoting, and who’d drawn guns on the couple before Green pulled her own weapon.
But at a recent key court hearing for two of the four men who allegedly shot at Green the day she was killed, Oakland police conceded that Green retrieved a gun and fired least twice before the shooters fired back and killed her. The revelation may put the prosecution in jeopardy as defense attorneys attempt to get their clients’ murder charges dismissed.
The hearing has given the public the best blow-by-blow yet of what occurred when Green was fatally shot while promoting the grand opening of an Oakland beauty shop on the 4000 block of Telegraph Avenue. Police and eyewitnesses described it as a chaotic scene, where almost none of the dozens of eyewitnesses showed any interest in helping the cops.
Green’s boyfriend, who was filming the event, not only failed to turn over the footage but fled the state and never contacted police, according to a detective’s testimony.
But video surveillance footage from a nearby smoke shop helped investigators figure out most of what happened, according to testimony by an Oakland homicide investigator. Green was shot and killed last July 13, at the event she’d helped organize and agreed to perform.
There were five shooters that day, including Green. Two of them have never been publicly identified, while two others — Dominic Gates and Richard James Romano — have been charged with murder. Like Green, police say Gates is a rapper who goes by the moniker BNC 4nero.
At Gates and Romano’s preliminary hearing, prosecuting and defense attorneys debated exactly what happened in key moments before the shooting. To the defense, it is clear that Green reached into her purse and pulled a pistol first, though video of her movement is obstructed.
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