Fan-Favorite Hip-Hop Artist Dies After Run-In With Police: Questions Surround Death of Young Scooter

Young Scooter, one of the most prominent musicians to emerge from the Atlanta rap scene, died on Friday night after an encounter with police. It was his 39th birthday.

The rapper, real name Kenneth Bailey, rose to prominence with his 2012 mixtape Street Lottery.

He signed to record label Freebandz shortly after and was well known for his platinum single collaborations with Atlanta legends Future and Young Thug across the last decade, as well as his hit single Colombia and his appearance on Juice WRLD’s gold-certified single Jet Lag.

NBC affiliate WXIA-TV 11 in Atlanta, also known as 11 Alive, was told by police that an incident occurred in the 200 block of William Nye Drive SE in Atlanta on Friday night. Police officers say they responded to a dispute with a weapon in the area, with a report of shots fired.

“Once officers arrived they knocked on the door. A male opened the door and immediately shut the door on the officers,” said Lt. Andrew Smith of Atlanta Police Department to the news channel. “During the process of establishing the perimeter, two males fled out of the rear of the house… one male returned back into the house. The other male jumped two fences as he was fleeing. When officers located him on the other side of the fence, he appeared to have suffered an injury to his leg.”

The male with the leg injury was Bailey; officers administered aid on the scene, but he was later taken to the hospital and died.

“Just to be very clear, the injury that was sustained was not via the officers on scene. It was when the male was fleeing,” Lt. Smith said.

According to Smith, the rapper fractured or injured his leg in some form while jumping the fence. As of the moment, Bailey did not commit any crime.

Bailey was known for his expressive style of rapping, which often featured outlandish and impossible brags—like when he once mentioned on Future’s song DOH DOH that he lost $100,000 and made it back in the same day.