May 7 (UPI) — A security guard who was working for singer Drake was shot and seriously injured early Tuesday outside the singer’s home in Canada, according to authorities.
“It is so early in the investigation that we don’t have a motive at this time,” said Toronto police Inspector Paul Krawczyk.
Local police had been called to the Canadian rapper’s $100 million mansion, located near Park Lane Circle and Post Road in Toronto’s Bridle Path neighborhood, a little after 2 a.m. local time in the province of Ontario in Canada’s most populous city near the New York border.
The victim, an unidentified, 48-year-old adult male, reportedly was injured and taken to a hospital after being shot and suffering serious but non-life threatening injuries. Authorities said the victim was shot as he was standing outside the front gates of Drake’s residence.
A police official could not confirm if Drake, 37, was at home or not when the shooting occurred, but authorities said the suspect, or multiple suspects, fled the scene in a vehicle that was not identified.
Investigators are reviewing evidence and video surveillance footage and have been in contact with the superstar’s team, who are cooperating with the ongoing investigation, according to Krawczyk, of Toronto Police Service’s Integrated Gun and Gang Task Force.
“I hope the police will find the people that are violating the law and catch them,” Toronto’s mayor, Olivia Chow, said Tuesday morning during a press conference unrelated to the investigation.
“We’re dealing with video quality issues,” Krawczyk said. “As we have information and we’re able to analyze video better then we’ll be able to provide more information.”
This is not the first time a violent attack has happened at Drake’s Toronto residence. A woman was arrested in March 2021 after she had allegedly assaulted a security guard outside the mansion. It’s not known if it was the same security guard.
This most recent incident comes amid an ongoing feud between Drake and fellow rapper Kendrick Lamar. For some time now, the two have been using social media and rap tracks to trade verbal jabs to attack one another, often with unverified claims.
After collaborating together on multiple albums over the years as friends, Drake and Lamar’s relationship first began to take a turn for the worse in 2013 when Lamar was on Big Sean’s “Control,” in which he criticized Drake and other rappers.
The beef continued over the years through a series of albums and a “war of words” between the two that eventually came to include other artists, including J. Cole.
