Las Vegas Strip Shooting Update: Kenny Clutch, aspiring rapper, among dead in fatal attack

By: Casey Glynn
Topics: Daily Blotter

Kenneth Cherry Jr.

/ Facebook

(CBS/AP) LAS VEGAS - Aspiring rapper Kenneth Cherry Jr., also known as Kenny Clutch, was one of three people killed in a deadly car-to-car shooting in the heart of the Las Vegas Strip Thursday morning.

Pictures: Aspiring rapper killed in Las Vegas Strip shooting

Cherry was driving a Maserati when a Range Rover pulled up and began shooting into the car, CBS Las Vegas reports. Cherry was killed and his passenger was injured. Two others were killed when Cherry's Maserati ran a red light and smashed into a taxi that exploded into flames.

The shooting occurred at Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road, the site of several major hotel-casinos and about a block away from where rapper Tupac Shakur was killed in a drive-by shooting in 1996 under similar circumstances.

"This is something you never want to go through," Cherry's father, Kenneth Cherry Sr., told KNTV. "This is the hardest thing in my life right now because you never want your children to leave before you leave."

According to his Facebook page, Cherry is from Oakland, Calif. and lived in Las Vegas.

Police said previously that they believe the violence was prompted by an earlier altercation at a hotel. Authorities are still searching for the Range Rover believed to be involved in the shooting.

Complete coverage of the Las Vegas Shooting on Crimesider

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Aspiring rapper killed in Las Vegas Strip shooting

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by lundayj2010 February 24, 2013 9:09 AM EST: good job doing that lol; Reply to this comment


by lundayj2010 February 24, 2013 9:08 AM EST: good job doing that lol; Reply to this comment


by vagrant45 February 22, 2013 7:04 PM EST: I hope the authorties have better luck finding the shooter than they have for the shooter of Tupac. Sorry for the folks in the cab who had absolutely nothing to do with any of this.; Reply to this comment

by nativecc February 22, 2013 3:30 PM EST

Who? Maybe I should learn to rap if an "aspiring rapper" can afford a Maserati.

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by st247 February 22, 2013 4:21 PM EST: Anybody can rap - it's all gibberish and requires the skill set of a four-year-old making up nursery school rhymes. Include several references to guns, dis women, and, if you're black, throw in a few n words (I'm opposed to that but I think it's requisite). Instant aspiring rapper. You should have your Maserati in a couple months.


by skyp2 February 22, 2013 12:43 PM EST: Apparently he was into something he shouldn't have been (gangs,drugs)guess he thought he was invinceable!! Shame is, others died because of him!; Reply to this comment


by FranklyEarnest February 22, 2013 12:22 PM EST: "Aspiring rapper." That's right up there with "youth," and "a group of teens" newspeak. I'm sure that we'll hear directly how he was "a good kid," and that he just "fell in with the wrong crowd."; Reply to this comment