Rapper Troy Ave, who’s accused of attempted murder in connection with a deadly melee at Irving Plaza, survived a Christmas Day shooting on a Brooklyn street corner, police sources said.
The 34-year-old Brooklyn performer, whose real name is Roland Collins, was sitting in a car on E. 91st St. and Linden Blvd. in East Flatbush at about 4:20 p.m., when an attacker came up to him and opened fire, sources said.
He was grazed in the head and shot in the arm, then took himself to Brookdale Hospital, about six blocks away, police sources said.
His bright red Maserati convertible remained on the crime scene, its doors ajar and blood covering the driver’s seat, hours after the shooting.
Collins and his girlfriend were stopped at a light when the gunman, who wore a hoodie, pulled down to obscure his face, started shooting through the driver’s side window, said his lawyer, John Stella.
“He looked to his left. He saw that the guy had a gun and was about to fire, and he started driving away,” Stella said. “He continued driving and he reached the point where he was bleeding pretty profusely, and apparently a good Samaritan drove him and his girl a couple of blocks the rest of the way to Brookdale.”
A bullet struck him in the shoulder, and remained lodged in his back, Stella said.
“He’s in pain, but he’s grateful. He said to me that he feels blessed that this wasn’t fatal in the end,” Stella said.
Collins is out on $500,000 bail following a May shooting at a T.I. concert that left his bodyguard, Ronald McPhatter, dead.
Collins, who was shot in the leg, contends that he wrestled the gun away from the man who killed McPhatter and fired back in self-defense.
“Tonight, Troy Ave was targeted again… on Christmas,” his lawyer, Scott Leemon, said in a written statement Sunday night. “In Brooklyn, going to meet his family for the holiday, he was shot two times. Thankfully, he will survive the second attempt on his life.”
Added Leemon, “As we have said from the beginning – he is a victim. We pray for his speedy recovery.”
Collins spoke to 20 high school students earlier this month at Columbia University’s Teachers College.
Showing the students his ankle monitor, he said, “This comes from choices, choices I had to make at the time. It was either fight for my life or fight for my freedom…. Now I gotta fight to clear my name.”
Collins is due back in court on Jan. 26. No other shooters in the Irving Plaza incident have been caught.
