New surveillance footage has emerged of DaBaby prior to him shooting a man and killing him, four years after the fatality, after which the rapper claimed self-defence.
DaBaby fatally shot 19-year-old Jaylin Craig at a Walmart in Charlotte, North Carolina in November 2018.
The musician – real name Jonathan Kirk – previously denied pulling the trigger that night when involved in a physical fight with Craig who, according to his family, was a DaBaby fan and met him in a chance encounter.
DaBaby has since repeatedly claimed that he acted out of fear for the safety of himself, his then-partner and their children, claiming that he felt threatened after two young men approached him and supposedly pulled out a firearm.
The rapper said he pulled out his own gun in a bid to protect his family.
New CCTV footage, obtained by , shows what happened at the start of the altercation and suggests that DaBaby was the one to initiate confrontation.
The footage supposedly contradicts his ‘self-defence’ claims by showing DaBaby throwing the first punch and launching himself at one of the teens, raising questions about the truth behind the tragedy.
Craig’s mother, LaWanda Horsley, told the publication that she ‘felt like they just swept it up under the rug’, in reference to the investigations into her son’s death.
‘[DaBaby] knows what he did. I’m not doing this for no fame or anything, because at the end of the day, Jaylin Craig is gone.’
In reference to the newly-released footage, DaBaby himself responded to a tweet which said: ‘Why are people acting like the 2018 video of DaBaby’s Walmart incident wasn’t already seen by Walmart, The Police and the courts?’
‘Cuz the media got they ass brainwashed,’ he replied.
It is claimed by Craig’s family members and his best friend, Henry Douglas, that a fight only started when the music star became annoyed he had been recognised by fans.
He allegedly demanded the group head outside to settle things in a fight, but claimed to police afterwards that it was the teenagers who proposed a fight.
The new surveillance footage seems to show Craig standing nearby as DaBaby punched friend Douglas in the face, who wasn’t expecting it.
Douglas was left with a bruised eye socket and a gash in his forehead that required stitches later.
Following the attack on his friend, Craig appears in the footage to pull out a gun from his waistband, but puts it back when walking out of the frame.
Later on, footage captured DaBaby pulling out a concealed Glock from his own waistband, shooting and killing Craig.
Authorities later ruled that it was inconclusive whether DaBaby was carrying a gun from when he approached the two men.
The altercation was over in less than a minute, ending with a wounded Craig running down an aisle in the store, with a trail of blood behind him.
He collapsed and medics pronounced him dead just minutes later.
DaBaby has always maintained that he acted out of self-defence that night, but has remained tight-lipped around specific details.
He told police that Craig and Douglas had been hanging around and eyeing him up in Walmart before allegedly approaching him with threats.
In his music, however, the rapper has referenced the shooting several times, most famously in the 2020 hit song Rockstar, in which he boasts about his one-year-old daughter witnessing him kill someone.
Four days after Craig’s death, the rapper released a music video for his single No Tears, which began with a montage of local news footage reporting on the shooting, despite the investigation still being open.
