Jury selection underway for rapper accused of shooting Megan Thee Stallion in Hollywood Hills
LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Jury selection is underway in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom as a rapper goes on trial in the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion.
Prosecutors allege Canadian rapper Tory Lanez, whose legal name is Daystar Peterson, shot Megan Thee Stallion in the foot during an argument after a house party in the Hollywood Hills on July 12, 2020.
Megan, now 27, spoke out about the shooting in a now-deleted July 2020 Instagram post. She didn't name the shooter until about a month later.
Lanez has pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include assault with a semiautomatic firearm and carrying a loaded, unregistered firearm in a vehicle.
He has also denied them in the opening song of his album released two months after the shooting: "I would never put you in no danger / And if I did, you would've said it when you seen the cops."
Rapper Tory Lanez charged in Megan Thee Stallion shooting
Megan explained why she did not immediately report what happened to police when she wrote an op-ed for The New York Times in 2020.
She wrote "My initial silence about what happened was out of fear for myself and my friends. Even as a victim, I have been met with skepticism and judgment."
She was also worried about how the police would handle what happened at the time.
During pretrial hearings, an LAPD detective testified "She was afraid that there had been recent police shootings, and she described her concern for the police possibly shooting the defendant since he had just committed a shooting."
After the jury is selected, testimony in the trial is expected to start in one week.
