18-Year-Old Man Admits to Fatally Shooting Pop Smoke

An 18-year-old man who was charged in the 2020 fatal shooting of rising Brooklyn rapper Pop Smoke admitted to killing him during a home-invasion robbery at a Hollywood Hills home in juvenile court Friday (May 12), according to City News Service.

The man, who was 15 at the time of the crime, admitted to a first-degree murder charge stemming from the Feb. 19, 2020, killing of Pop Smoke (real name Bashar Barakah Jackson). He also admitted to a home-invasion robbery charge as well as an allegation that he personally and intentionally discharged a firearm during the crime.

He is expected to be held in a state juvenile facility until he turns 25.

City News Service reported that during the hearing, L.A. County Superior Court Judge J. Christopher Smith told the 18-year-old man and his 19-year-old co-defendant, the latter of whom admitted to a juvenile court petition charging him with home-invasion robbery, “That man lost his life over no good reason. … You have no right to take somebody’s life. You have no right to take somebody’s property.”

The 19-year-old man and a third, 20-year-old man, who pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and another count of home-invasion robbery during an April 6, 2023-dated hearing, could both remain in juvenile custody until they turn 25. The names of all three men are not being publicly released because of their ages at the time of the crime.

Only one of the four men who were charged in the killing of Pop Smoke, Corey Walker, is being charged in adult court because he was 19 at the time of the crime and is now 22. City News Service reports he is awaiting a pretrial hearing scheduled for June 16 in L.A. on murder, robbery and burglary charges.