OAKLAND — During the early stages of her burgeoning rap career, Alliana Green spread a false rumor that she’d killed an abusive ex and been cleared by police.
The tragic, bitter irony is that prosecutors now say Green — known best by her stage name, Tan DaGod — died while protecting her boyfriend from deadly harm. Authorities say Green shot at a group of men who’d attended a grand opening for a beauty salon she was promoting, and who’d drawn guns on the couple before Green pulled her own weapon.
But at a recent key court hearing for two of the four men who allegedly shot at Green the day she was killed, Oakland police conceded that Green retrieved gun and fired least twice before the shooters fired back and killed her. The revelation may put the prosecution in jeopardy as defense attorneys attempt to get their clients’ murder charges dismissed.
The hearing has given public the best blow-by-blow yet of what occurred when Green was fatally shot while promoting the grand opening of an Oakland beauty shop on the 4000 block of Telegraph Avenue. Police and eyewitnesses described it as a chaotic scene, where almost none of the dozens of eyewitnesses showed any interest in helping the cops
Green’s boyfriend, who was filming the event, not only failed to turn over the footage but fled the state and never contacted police, according to a detective’s testimony.
But video surveillance footage from a nearby smoke shop helped investigators figure out most of what happened, according to testimony by an Oakland homicide investigator. Green was shot and killed last July 13, at the event she’d helped organize and agreed to perform.
There were five shooters that day, including Green. Two of them have never been publicly identified, while two others — Dominic Gates and Richard James Romano — have been charged with murder. Like Green, police say Gates is a rapper who goes by the moniker BNC 4nero.
At Gates and Romano’s preliminary hearing, prosecuting and defense attorneys debated exactly what happened in key moments before the shooting. To the defense, it is clear that Green reached into her purse and pulled a pistol first, though video of her movement is obstructed.
Judge Michael Risher disagreed with the defense’s assessment.
“It appears that (Gates and Romano) have their guns out before she has her gun out,” Risher said. “So there is probable cause to think that they, in fact, were the aggressors here and therefore cannot claim self-defense.”
But Risher also noted several times that his legal burden to advance the case past the preliminary hearing is much lower than what jurors would face at a criminal trial. He also opined that from the video, “there are many ways to interpret” what happened, which may spell trouble for the prosecution. If jurors determine that there are multiple reasonable interpretations of evidence, and at least one points to innocence, they’re required by law to reach an acquittal.
What the video shows before the shooting is a lighthearted and family-oriented event in North Oakland, with refreshments, music, and dozens of attendees.
“Everyone was having a good time. There were children, families. It was a positive event,” Oakland homicide Det. Roland Aguilar testified.
During the event, Gates pulled down a face mask while enjoying refreshments, which helped investigators place him there, police testified. But when Aguilar claimed he identified Gates from “tear drop” tattoos on his face, defense attorney Daniel Shriro asked him to take a closer look at Gates’ face in court. After doing so, Aguilar backtracked.
“I observed face tattoos. I thought it was a tear drops. Turns out they’re not,” Aguilar said.
At some point during the event, Gates and Green appeared to argue. Then Romano allegedly shoved Green’s boyfriend, and Deputy District Attorney Olivia Suraci described what she believes happened next.
“Mr. Gates points the firearm at Ms. Green’s boyfriend. And at that point she shoots. She sees firearm and she sees her boyfriend in danger,” Suraci said, later adding, “If she had waited until the defendant’s started shooting their own guns it would have been too late for her boyfriend. And sadly it was too late for her.”
Defense attorneys dispute all of this. Their theory is that Green threatened Gates, walked to a nearby Tesla for a purse containing a pistol, then pulled the gun and fired as the lone aggressor in the situation. They said Green had based her identity upon being a violent, hardened criminal and seized an opportunity to back this up with action that day.
“She needs to present herself as a criminal in order to be successful as the rapper that she chose to be. And she’s bragging about being a murderer when it turns out that she didn’t actually do that crime,” Shriro said. “But that’s exactly why she went and did this.”
To that point, Aguilar said he thoroughly investigated Green’s own claim that made her go viral after her death, that she’d killed an abusive ex in self defense. He found no evidence she’d ever been a homicide suspect, adding that he “definitely” would have if the claim had been real. He said he later learned from Green’s family that she invented the story to “build up her rap career.”
“All of this was ‘for clout’ to make her music career go in a positive way and try to gain that stardom that she wanted for her music career,” Aguilar said on the stand.
