Cincinnati Police have arrested two suspects in the 2006 killing of Atlanta rapper T.I.'s assistant and childhood friend and the shooting of three others in the artist's entourage outside a nightclub.
Hosea Thomas, 34, and Padron Thomas, 40, who are brothers, have been charged with murder and felonious assault for the death of Philant Johnson, 26, and the wounding of the three others. Both suspects were arrested Wednesday and are being held in the Hamilton County jail.
Police said the 3 a.m. shooting on May 3, 2006, might have carried over from an earlier squabble at an after-hours party at a Cincinnati-area nightclub, Ritz. Witnesses told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the trouble started when some men at the club became upset after someone from the rapper's entourage threw money from the stage.
"It was supposed to be for the ladies," one witness told the paper, without wanting to be named. "But it [the money] was hitting the guys in the face and they were like, 'We got money, so why are you throwing money at us?'"
T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, and his entourage left the after-hours party, but men in two sport utility vehicles followed, police said.
In addition to Johnson's death, the shooting injured Harris' bodyguard Ronald Hausley, 40, of Mableton; driver Elijah Edwards, 31, of Stratford, Conn.; and Janice Gillespie, 22, of St. Paul, Minn.
Sydney Margetson, a spokesman for T.I.'s label, Atlantic Records, declined to comment on the arrests.
Robert Morgan Jr., Harris' maternal grandfather, said Johnson and Harris were close from the time they were children and used to play together at Morgan's Atlanta home.
"Philant was like one of my own. He was a nice fellow. He was a big, young dude," Morgan said. "I thought as much of him as I did some of my own."
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