LOS ANGELES _ A boisterous crowd gathered in Los Angeles Tuesday night for a memorial for the slain rapper XXXTentacion, with some people climbing onto rooftops and swarming moving cars as police ordered them to disperse.
Between 300 and 500 people gathered in the street on Melrose and Spaulding avenues in the Fairfax area, blocking traffic in the roadway, said Los Angeles Police Officer Tony Im. Standing on rooftops, some pumped their fists into the air as a television news helicopter hovered above.
Dozens of people in the middle of the crowd formed a mosh pit, jumping up and down. At least one person climbed on top of a news van and jumped on the windshield. At one point, a convertible drove past the crowd. When it stopped in the roadway, people swarmed the car on both sides.
Shortly after 9 p.m., about two hours after they were first called to the scene, police officers in tactical gear formed a line along a crosswalk and were authorized to use tear gas to disperse the crowd, Im said. One officer was struck by a rock.
While the crowd thinned, a rowdy group moved down the street and continued to block traffic in the roadway, swarming and weaving between cars stopped in the road. At one point, multiple people climbed on top of a car as it drove through the street, with people running next to it on both sides. Police followed at a distance.
The event was not permitted, Im said.
"We're going to try to have them safely leave and try to get the street back in order," Im said.
No one had been arrested late Tuesday.
XXXTentacion, born Jahseh Onfroy, was shot and killed in South Florida on Monday, just three months after he hit the top of the charts with his latest album.
He was shot outside of Riva Motorsports in Pompano Beach, Fla., by a gunman who fled the scene after an apparent robbery, according to the Broward County Sheriff's Office. Onfroy was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. He was 20.
