Rapper awaiting trial for gang related shooting

SAN DIEGO (KUSI) – Police and prosecutors in San Diego say they have to be tough on gang crime, but community members and even some legal experts are raising serious questions about the arrest of a local rapper.

Violence, drug dealing and murder. Those are common themes in popular films, books, and music.

So why is a man with no previous criminal record, now facing trial and possibly prison time? Could it be because he just made a few gangster rap CDs?

His name is Brandon Duncan, also known as Tiny Doo is a gangster rapper. The 33-year-old Lincoln Park man is in jail awaiting trial.

He has been accused of conspiracy to commit attempted murder, not because he pulled the trigger, but because he wrote about gang violence.

Duncan’s childhood friend, Aaron Harvey is also in jail in the same case.

A total of 13 young men are being prosecuted for nine shootings by the San Diego District Attorney’s office, even though no one in the group is directly tied to any of them.

Aaron Harvey had been going to school in Las Vegas.

Duncan and the other twelve defendants are being prosecuted under an obscure state law passed in 2000, that gives the District Attorney more power to crack down on street gangs, by asserting that they have been able to profit form the gang’s activities.

Criminal law expert Alex Kreit thinks this case may be on shaky ground because of the first amendment.

In the broader picture, Dwayne Harvey says it is wrong for his son and others to be rounded up with no solid evidence against them.

The District Attorney’s office declined KUSI’s request for an on-camera interview.

It appears the prosecution of Brandon Duncan and the other defendants is going to move forward.

If convicted of the chargers, they face 25 years to life in prison.