Man gunned down in broad daylight hit in Midtown Manhattan

[airthompson]

RIP

 

[goldenarmz97]

He was a friend of mine, I'm numb right now. Brandon was one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, not an enemy in the world.
Rest in peace fam.

 

[spiceman80]

^^^^^
Sorry for your loss.

 

[dipsetgeneral]

No damns were given. R.I.P.

 

[the hater boxden]

He was a friend of mine, I'm numb right now. Brandon was one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, not an enemy in the world.
Rest in peace fam.

Wow. Sorry for your loss |I

 

[tonelow]

Read something about dude having a bunch of petty charges then he caught a dope charge in the 90210 recently.  He probably got in over his head, and got it emptied out as a result.  And I think they said he was a sex offender or something like that, too.

Uncalled for at this time.

He was a friend of mine, I'm numb right now. Brandon was one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, not an enemy in the world.
Rest in peace fam.

He was a good friend of my sis. Still in shock, just an overall nice guy. Will be missed.

 

[frenchblue23]

He was a friend of mine, I'm numb right now. Brandon was one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, not an enemy in the world.
Rest in peace fam.

Sorry for your loss |I

This was someone's son, friend, brother, or father. RIP.

 

[frankmatthews]

Was this mistaken identity or what? Hate to assume he was involved in criminal activity just because he was killed. Doesn't sound like the type of person you risk such a bold move to kill. It's crazy you guys know the dude. Hope the killer is brought to justice.

Something really doesn't add up with this story to me. I find this very interesting though. Who was this guy to warrant such brazen action.

 

[i skate nikes]

nobody gets murked like that for NO REASON or by ACCIDENT.

dude, did something or owed something.

plain and simple... what goes around, comes around.

do the right thing, get the right thing done to ya.

broad day light though. 

 

[mondaynightraw]

Broad day light and the camera caught him

Had to be personal.

 

[jhawk826]

[h1]Pics bare chilling anatomy of hit in Midtown[/h1]
By KEVIN FASICK, KIRSTAN CONLEY and LARRY CELONA

Last Updated: 11:03 AM, December 12, 2012

Posted: 1:22 AM, December 12, 2012

The NYPD yesterday released a dramatic series of surveillance photos that show a killer about to gun down his unsuspecting target on a busy Midtown street.

Brandon Lincoln Woodard, 31, had just checked out of the swank 6 Columbus hotel near Columbus Circle when he was followed by the assassin on West 58th Street and killed near Seventh Avenue Monday afternoon.

The assassin escaped in a getaway car. Cops early this morning were questioning the couple who rented the car, The Post has learned, although investigators don't believe they were driving it — but they are looking at the possibility they may have loaned it to someone who then used it in the crime.

Earlier on that fateful day, the law student appeared nervous as he had what turned out to be his final breakfast, at the La Parisienne diner.

“He ate breakfast at the counter but he was always looking over his shoulder,” said cashier Dimitrios Drimalitis, 61. “He looked scared and afraid of something.”

1. A silver Lincoln MKX sedan pulls up along West 58th Street and parks in an open spot near Seventh Avenue. Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, the hit man (circled) exits through the passenger door, looks around and paces back and forth next to the sedan. He's 20 minutes early and his victim, Brandon Woodward, 31, is still checking out of the swanky 6 Columbus hotel.

2. The killer pulls his sweat-shirt hood over his head. At about 1:15 p.m., Woodward walks east on the north side of West 58th Street and crosses Broadway. He checks his smartphone, as if looking for directions, and passes right next to his assassin, who is waiting for an opportunity to strike.

3. Woodward turns around and walks west. He glances over his shoulder at the hooded man but seems not to recognize the killer and keeps going. The assassin approaches from behind, pulls a gun and blasts Woodward at close range with a single 9mm shot to the head. The 31-year-old father crumples to the ground. The shooter enters the Lincoln sedan and is whisked away by his getaway driver.

Woodard returned to his hotel and then left at 1:15 p.m., possibly lured away by the killer and drawn into a trap, said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

“It’s certainly a distinct possibility,” Kelly said. “We are looking into that.”

Cops said Woodard was killed with a weapon that ballistics determined was also used in a 2009 shooting in which two men riddled a St. Albans, Queens, house with bullets. No one was hit.

“They never found out who did it’’ or why, said Eshe Warner, 24, whose late grandmother, Iris Warner, owned the home at the time.

“They just shot at the house — no one ever came in.’’

NYPD detectives went to Woodard’s hometown of Los Angeles yesterday as cops zeroed in on drugs as a possible motive.

“Because of his extensive criminal record, we’re looking into the possibility it was drug-related,’’ a police source said of the shooting. “We’re also looking into his ties to the entertainment industry. He ran a small promoting business, and the address comes back to his home. We’re looking to see who his clients were.”

A search of Woodard’s hotel room yesterday came up empty, a source said. After checking out of the hotel, the victim left his duffel bag at the front desk. He was supposed to return for it.

Police were examining the cellphone Woodard was using, apparently texting, just as he was shot.

Woodard arrived alone in New York on Sunday with a one-way airline ticket. He had dinner that night with a female pal he met six months ago in LA, she told cops.

Woodard, the father of a 5-year-old girl, last spoke to relatives Sunday, when he called his mother to say he’d be back in LA the next day.

“I’m hurt right now,” said the victim’s stepfather, Rod Wellington, speaking on behalf of the mother, who was too shaken to talk. “This is devastating.”

Woodard was one day away from a law-school semester final at the University of West Los Angeles, where he was a second-year student. He had a bachelor’s in business from Loyola Marymount University in LA.

Woodard was a hard-partying club promoter who often entertained at all hours of the night, said neighbors. He was frequently the subject of noise complaints over blaring hip-hop music.

He was charged with cocaine possession in California in June and had 20 prior arrests, for drugs, robbery, petit theft and leaving the scene of an accident.

Woodard pleaded not guilty on the coke rap, and was scheduled to be back in court next month.

In 2009, he was sentenced to three years’ probation after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor charge of hit-and-run driving in Torrance, in Los Angeles County.

In 2008, he stole items from two upscale markets in Beverly Hills and was slapped with a nine-day jail sentence and 200 hours of community service on two misdemeanor charges of grand theft.

Woodard also once claimed he was roughed up by bodyguards working for R&B superstar Usher.

His family said he had not had a formal job since starting law school — although he worked with his mother, Sandra McBeth-Reynolds, at her mortgage firm.

The firm, LA-based United International Mortgage, has been targeted by lawsuits for alleged fraud, breach of contract and collections.

“The number of people they burned, and people who lost their homes, is huge — their enemies list is huge,” Tonya Pinkins, a Tony Award-winning Broadway actress, told the Hollywood Web site showbiz411.com.

Pinkins — a former actress on the TV soap “All My Children,’’ who is the ex-partner of McBeth-Reynolds’ current husband, Wellington, said “she would sell properties to Brandon and then he would default on them.’’

Read more: NYPD releases chilling photos of killer gunning down visitor from LA in Midtown - NYPOST.com http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local

/pics_bare_chilling_anatomy_of_hit_LueBidIUKF6hA8IBWzcZKI#ixzz2ErCHsUvw

 

[jordanscrub]

Wow... Rest in peace

 

[supremequality]

 I cant help but to feel sorry for dude .. that is a ****** up way to go..

 

[mondaynightraw]

Things dont add up

He was in law school @ 31. Kinda old..but understandable.
He had a final exam the next day, but booked a one way ticket to NY
No one knew he left to NY

The gun that was used to kill him was also used 3 yrs ago to shoot up a house in Queens
Getaway car was found in Queens

 

[createdestroy]

He was a friend of mine, I'm numb right now. Brandon was one of the nicest people you'll ever meet, not an enemy in the world.
Rest in peace fam.

 

[johnny cakes]

Things dont add up
He was in law school @ 31. Kinda old..but understandable.
He had a final exam the next day, but booked a one way ticket to NY
No one knew he left to NY
The gun that was used to kill him was also used 3 yrs ago to shoot up a house in Queens
Getaway car was found in Queens

31 is considered old to be in law school? Or any college for that matter? Really?

 

[jhawk826]

Things dont add up

He was in law school @ 31. Kinda old..but understandable.
He had a final exam the next day, but booked a one way ticket to NY
No one knew he left to NY

The gun that was used to kill him was also used 3 yrs ago to shoot up a house in Queens
Getaway car was found in Queens

No its not. The average age for the 1st year law student is 26 years old. There are more older students as 1Ls than a 21/22 year old fresh out of college.

[h1]Midtown murder victim may have been lured with text message: sources[/h1]
By LARRY CELONA, JAMIE SCHRAM and DAN MacLEOD

Last Updated: 3:13 AM, December 13, 2012

Posted: 1:52 PM, December 12, 2012

Cops are investigating whether the man executed on a busy Midtown block was lured to his death via text message, law-enforcement sources told The Post yesterday.

Brandon Lincoln Woodard, 31, of Los Angeles, walked past the killer’s getaway car on West 58th Street shortly before Monday’s assassination, and the driver pointed him out to the gunman, the sources said.

Woodard reversed direction and came back toward his assailant after receiving either a text message or phone call, the sources said.

The shooter sneaked up behind Woodard for the kill shot, maneuvering like a seasoned pro.

“In addition to the way he makes himself virtually invisible in the street, right as he points the gun at [Wooddard’s] head, he turns away as if he’s anticipating blood spatter,” one source said. “In one fluid motion, it’s just ‘bam!’ into the car, then out.”

Cops yesterday grabbed a 40-year-old man outside his Rosedale, Queens, home as he was getting into a car and hauled him in handcuffs to the Midtown North Precinct station house for questioning, sources said.

The man is a friend of someone involved in Woodard’s murder and was interrogated before he was eventually cut loose, the sources added.

“The cops apologized to him. My son is home. He didn’t do anything. He is innocent,” the man’s mother said late last night.

Sources believe that the killers had another friend, a woman, rent the getaway car for them. Cops found that silver-gray Lincoln MKX hours before the 40-year-old man was taken in.

They tracked down the car in Queens with “Ring of Steel” technology, said Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.

Kelly said cops used “mobile license-plate readers that move around throughout the city and what you can do is put in a plate number and scour an area, and that’s how it was found.”

Investigators yesterday were swabbing the vehicle for DNA and other evidence at the 105th Precinct station house.

Cops were still looking for a motive in the killing of Woodard, the father of a 4-year-old girl.

The NYPD released a dramatic series of surveillance photosthat show a killer about to gun down an unsuspecting Wooddard on a busy Midtown street.

1. A silver Lincoln MKX sedan pulls up along West 58th Street and parks in an open spot near Seventh Avenue. Wearing a black hooded sweatshirt, the hit man (circled) exits through the passenger door, looks around and paces back and forth next to the sedan. He's 20 minutes early and his victim, Brandon Woodward, 31, is still checking out of the swanky 6 Columbus hotel.

2. The killer pulls his sweat-shirt hood over his head. At about 1:15 p.m., Woodward walks east on the north side of West 58th Street and crosses Broadway. He checks his smartphone, as if looking for directions, and passes right next to his assassin, who is waiting for an opportunity to strike.

3. Woodward turns around and walks west. He glances over his shoulder at the hooded man but seems not to recognize the killer and keeps going. The assassin approaches from behind, pulls a gun and blasts Woodward at close range with a single 9mm shot to the head. The 31-year-old father crumples to the ground. The shooter enters the Lincoln sedan and is whisked away by his getaway driver.

He flew into New York on Sunday night and watched the Packer-Lion game in his hotel room near Columbus Circle with a gal pal before going out to dinner, Kelly said.

The next day, Woodard ate breakfast at a diner around the corner. A witness said he appeared scared and was constantly looking over his shoulder.

Later, he checked out of the hotel and waited for a cab, then left suddenly, saying that he had to go to a bank, a hotel employee said.

Sources also revealed that one of the cellphones investigators are tracking in the murder tied to a July 7 triple slaying in Springfield Gardens, Queens. In that unsolved case, three men were gunned down and a fourth was wounded by thugs firing AK-47-style assault rifles.

Yesterday afternoon, 10 cops — including two NYPD detectives — dug through Woodard’s Los Angeles condo but left empty-handed.

“Thank you, thank you,” said the victim’s stepfather, Rod Wellington, after being told that someone connected to the case had been questioned. “We’re hopeful.”

The family was arranging to bring the body back to California.

Read more: Midtown murder victim may have been lured with text message: sources - NYPOST.com http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/...own_slay_pPN6hrJgLzUwmBhlsXPEeO#ixzz2EwgHjm5X

 

[jjs07]

Just out of curiosity, do law schools do criminal background checks on people applying? Dude seemed to have a lengthy rap-sheet.

*FWIW, story was on the front page of Yahoo this morning.

 

[jhawk826]

Just out of curiosity, do law schools do criminal background checks on people applying? Dude seemed to have a lengthy rap-sheet.

*FWIW, story was on the front page of Yahoo this morning.

You can still go to law school with a criminal record or any college for that matter. Applying for the bar is a different story.

 

[gllahone84]

ill

 

[executive76]

 

[DYNAMICS]

 

[rex ryan]

rip to the victim and the family but more then likely there was a motive behind it and he was probably doing some type of dirt.

crazy story though, i know a few people who know the victim.

 

[3am scholar]

You can still go to law school with a criminal record or any college for that matter. Applying for the bar is a different story.

View media item 169824

 

[jjs07]

View media item 169824

Interesting....in the vid that T-Dot posted, there was no mention of him going to law school...they just said he was a hard-partying club promoter that had a lengthy rap sheet.