MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Miami Beach detectives believe they have arrested the person responsible for the death of a Chicago rapper killed on South Beach two years ago.
The victim, Ameer Golston, also known as rapper AAB Hellabandz, was gunned down in the middle of the street in May of 2019.
Detectives said Austin Hall, 26, was the shooter and that he had come to Miami Beach to settle a score with Golston. Detectives said both of the men were not strangers to law enforcement. Golston, 24, was named as the alleged shooter in a March 2015 murder at a nightclub called Adrianna’s in a south suburb of Chicago. Hall had just been convicted on an armed robbery charge, but came to Miami Beach before he was to have turned himself in to prison.
“It was pretty brazen to assassinate somebody in the middle of the street, next to a nightclub that was packed,” said Miami Beach homicide detective Alberto Porro about the South Beach shooting.
(See the report from the night of the shooting.)
It was Saturday, May 11, 2019, at 2:37 a.m., when eight to nine gunshots were heard in the area of Washington Avenue and Espanola Way, according to the arrest warrant. A Miami Beach police officer who was in the area heard the gunshots and witnessed a large crowd fleeing. It was then that the victim, later identified as Golston, was found unresponsive and motionless, lying on his left side, in the 200 block of Espanola Way. The warrant said detectives identified Golston from a state of Arizona ID card found in his pants pocket.
Just a little more than a half hour before the shooting, surveillance video showed Golston arriving in front of Cameo Night Club at 1445 Washington Ave., at 2 a.m. on May 11.
At 2:35 a.m., he is then seen on video with several people walking east on Espanola Way.
At 2:36 a.m., detectives said the suspect, Hall, arrived at Cameo Night Club with two other men. He is seen talking on a cell phone and then all three walk east on Espanola Way, just a few steps in front and behind Golston.
It is when the victim gets to the corner of Espanola Way and Washington Avenue that the three men, including Hall, walk in front of him.
Hall steps in front of Golston, according to investigators, words are exchanged and Hall then punches Golston in the face. The footage shows the victim stumble and try to defend himself, but then he turns and runs away to try to flee Hall.
Hall is seen chasing him. According to the warrant, Hall raises his right arm and points a gun at Golston firing several rounds. The rapper tries to avoid being hit by running between parked cars.
The arrest warrant said that Golston then stumbles and falls face first to the ground as Hall chases him. Hall approaches him and stands above the victim shooting him several times, striking in him in the back and head as he lies motionless on the street, according to investigators.
Another person was also found shot approximately 20 feet west of Golston, according to the warrant. He was taken to Ryder Trauma with non-life threatening injuries.
Golston, however, was pronounced dead at the scene at 2:45 a.m.
According to an arrest warrant, the shooting was retaliation for a shooting that Golston committed.
Porro said his team started piecing together the case with surveillance video, telephone records, and the movements of Hall’s associates, which led them to Chicago and Chicago PD.
“Without them, this would be an unsolved case right now,” Porro said.
Hall was known to cops there, who allegedly identified him in surveillance video. Chicago police said Hall had been arrested in 2017 for possession of a stolen vehicle and possession/use of a firearm by a convicted felon, and he had just been convicted of an armed robbery.
A warrant was signed in April, police did surveillance, and Porro and his team went to the Windy City to arrest Hall.
“This case had to be done slowly and surely to build it to the point that we are now. So that we are pretty confident that when this goes to trial or in front of a judge, there’s no doubt,” Porro said.
Hall is facing charges of murder in the first degree.