4th Youth Dies in Gang Dispute Over Rap Music

The fourth person in a week to be killed by gang violence died Friday, the victim of what police suspect is a dispute over rap music.

The police say the rival factions, identified as Big Block and Westmob, are feuding over CD sales and insults in songs.

“It all started over the music,” Inspector Kevin Whitfield said. “It was over who was putting out the best music, who was putting out music first--then it became about [how] Big Block felt disrespected in music by members of Westmob.”

Police said there have been at least 20 shootings since November that could be connected to the rivalry. Patrols have been added and a special task force has been formed to address the escalating violence in the city’s Bayview-Hunters Point district.

Starvel Junious, 17, was killed Wednesday afternoon as he sat in a car with a friend, who was also shot.

“I want people to know that he wasn’t in any gang,” said his mother, Jacalyn Pitcher. “He hadn’t had any run-ins with police. He was just in the wrong place.”

The friend, a 15-year-old boy, died Friday about 1 p.m., said Gloria Rodriguez, spokeswoman for San Francisco General Hospital. He was shot in the head and chest and had been on life support since Wednesday.

Police suspect the shooting was retaliation for a shooting last weekend aimed at the Westmob group that left two dead. The groups were apparently involved in an April 8 shooting at San Francisco’s Armenian Community Center that left three wounded, police said.

The Westmob gang is allegedly connected to Full Fledged, a group of eight rap performers who record on various labels, Whitfield said. The Big Block gang is allegedly associated with Big Block Records, he said.

Douglas Stepney, 28, who runs Big Block Records, is awaiting trial on charges of making terrorist threats stemming from a 1998 incident near a recording studio.

Stepney’s attorney, Scott Kaufman, denied that his client is involved in a gang.

“Big Block is a legitimate music business,” Kaufman said. “There may be kids associated with it that don’t do nice things, but I think it is a legitimate business enterprise.”

Kaufman called the shootings tragic.

“In part, the tension over trying to make it is causing this violence,” he said. “There’s a lot of competition.”