A gang member was sentenced to 25 years in prison for shooting and paralyzing a rival in a Montgomery County, Maryland, recording studio in August 2020.
Prosecutors said chilling video played for the jury showed Marvin Frazier in a Montgomery Village studio when he heard two rivals in an ongoing gang feud were in the lobby. He is seen going after the two with a gun in his hand as others try to hold him back.
He pistol-whipped one man before firing the weapon through a doorway, hitting another.
That man was critically wounded – paralyzed from the waist down.
“This was a rap studio,” prosecutor Teresa Casafranca said. “They were recording. There was two different recording studios. They were complete strangers to each other, and, in fact, there was nothing to indicate he even knew who the victims were personally, just that he believed them to be part of another gang.”
After the shooting, Frazier went on the run before he was taken into custody several months later, prosecutors said.
At trial, Frazier took the stand and said he only opened fire because he was defending himself, prosecutors said.
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“He testified that he acted in self-defense because he knew of no other way to get out of that rap studio with his life, but all the evidence that the jury saw was that the two victims were just standing there using their phones,” Casafranca said.
The charging document filed in the case says Frazier is a member of a Montgomery County gang and, at the time, so was one of the victims.
Frazier has a long criminal history in the county, and Casafranca said she is pleased to finally get him off the streets.
“It sends a message that we care and that members of our community should not be afraid to come forward and talk to authorities, because when we can incarcerate and incapacitate individuals who have no regard for human life and who are involved in gangs, that means that we want to make our community safe,” she said.
Casafranca said Frazier was a prolific promoter of gang life through rap videos he posted online. Now, that has come to an end, she said.
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