A 17-year-old man has been charged with fatally shooting a Detroit-area man who was trying to expose a sexual predator by posing as a teenage girl on social media in an unauthorized “sting operation.”
Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald announced that he has been charged with murder and use of a concealed weapon during the commission of a felony. McDonald’s office announced Thursday that there is no evidence the shooting was connected to a “sting operation” by Robert Wayne Lee II.
Lee, 40, was shot in September 2023 at a restaurant in Pontiac, northwest of Detroit. McDonald’s office said in a statement that surveillance footage showed Lee entering the restaurant and approaching the booth where the suspect and his 18-year-old friend were sitting.
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Lee got into a fight with an 18-year-old boy, and the 16-year-old suspect was seen firing several shots at Lee. Both teenagers fled the restaurant but were later arrested. Mr. Lee died at the hospital.
Lee went by the name “Boopack Shakur” on social media. His activities led to criminal charges against several men, including one who was mistakenly identified as a sex offender, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Department announced.
A 17-year-old boy has been charged with the murder of Robert Lee II, a Detroit-area online vigilante known on social media as “Boopack Shakur.”
Some videos posted online show Lee and others aggressively confronting alleged sexual predators in public. One of Lee’s videos, posted in 2022, led the sheriff’s office to arrest a probation officer who tried to arrange a meeting and sex act with someone believed to be a 15-year-old girl. The deputy was fired.
Prosecutors said they had requested that the boy be tried as an adult. If convicted, he could be sentenced as a juvenile or an adult. The judge could also give him a blended sentence that incorporates both juvenile rehabilitation and adult punishment.
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The suspect in Lee’s murder has been in custody since his arrest on unrelated charges of assault with intent to murder and use of a firearm in a felony in connection with a September shooting outside a Pontiac Market. His trial in that shooting began this week.
