Death
On April 11, 2006, Proof was shot four times by Mario Etheridge, twice in the head and twice in the chest/stomach area, after an altercation broke out during a game of billiards at the CCC Club on 8 Mile Road in Detroit, Michigan. A pool game between Proof and Keith Bender turned into a heated argument and then escalated into a physical altercation. Etheridge, who was Bender's cousin, fired a warning shot into the air. It was reported that Proof (who was licensed to carry a gun) then shot Bender in the head during the altercation. Bender was not immediately killed by the gunshot but died a week later from his injuries. In response to Proof shooting Bender, Etheridge then shot Proof four times, twice in the head and twice in the chest/stomach area, killing him immediately. At the time of his death, Proof's blood alcohol content was 0.32, four times the legal DUI limit. An autopsy revealed that Holton did not have any illegal drugs in his system. Bender's family began a wrongful death suit against Proof's estate. Authorities determined that Etheridge was acting lawfully in defense of another; however, he was found guilty of carrying an illegal firearm and discharging it inside of a building.
On April 12, 2006, Proof was buried in the Fellowship Chapel in Detroit to a full house of 2,660, including Royce da 5'9", D12 and thousands more mourning outside.
Read more about this topic: Proof (rapper)
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“I’m beginning to believe that Killer Illiteracy ought to rank near heart disease and cancer as one of the leading causes of death among Americans. What you don’t know can indeed hurt you, and so those who can neither read nor write lead miserable lives, like Richard Wright’s character, Bigger Thomas, born dead with no past or future.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“Death does determine life.... Once life is finished it acquires a sense; up to that point it has not got a sense; its sense is suspended and therefore ambiguous. However, to be sincere I must add that for me death is important only if it is not justified and rationalized by reason. For me death is the maximum of epicness and death.”
—Pier Paolo Pasolini (1922–1975)
“The ancients adorned their sarcophagi with the emblems of life and procreation, and even with obscene symbols; in the religions of antiquity the sacred and the obscene often lay very close together. These men knew how to pay homage to death. For death is worthy of homage as the cradle of life, as the womb of palingenesis.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)