Deadly clash in Hollywood between Swedish rapper and jazz performer

After midnight Sunday, John Osnes, a pianist who performed jazz standards and Beatles songs at piano bars in Hollywood, put an empty glass down on the counter of one of his favorite haunts, The Spotlight, and waved goodbye to an employee.

"He said, 'Benji, I will see you tomorrow for sure,' " bartender Benjamin Avery recalled.

An hour later, Osnes, 55, lay dying in a crosswalk a few blocks away, the victim, police say, of a violent road rage attack by a Swedish hip-hop artist.

The rapper, David Moses Jassy, also known as Dave Monopoly, 34, made a brief appearance in Superior Court on Wednesday. His arraignment was postponed a week to allow him to hire an attorney.

According to authorities, Osnes, who did not own a car and was a stickler for pedestrian rights, was crossing a street near his residence when Jassy's rented SUV drifted into the crosswalk. After Osnes struck the front of the vehicle with his hands, Jassy allegedly got out, punched Osnes, kicked him in the head when he stooped to recover his glasses and then ran over him with the vehicle. Bystanders, including an off-duty Anaheim police officer, witnessed the assault and tried unsuccessfully to detain Jassy, according to authorities.

Osnes was pronounced dead at a hospital, and Jassy was arrested Monday after investigators traced the license of his rented vehicle.

Read the rest of the story here.

--Harriet Ryan

Comments

[I hate rap]

Justice needs to be served here. This is murder.

[harleyblues]

Man, that is dreadful just awful, what a jerk I hope this gut gets a huge sentence! the poor man that died for what?

[Franklin Rizzo]

Sounds like more black on white crime, hate crime by definition, which will be ignored as such.
Had it been the reverse, it would be a 1000 times bigger story and Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson would have been forcing the issue.
But since only a white person was killed, it's no big deal.

FACT