For reasons still unknown, 31-year-old Los Angeles native Brandon Lincoln Woodard was gunned down execution style in Midtown Manhattan on 58th street near 7th avenue yesterday, December 11th, 2012.  The shooting happened around 2 p.m., according to the New York Post. Woodard was walking on 58th street while writing a text on his phone when an unidentified gunman ran up behind him and shot him in the head.  Blood splattered everywhere and the assailant fled into a nearby waiting car, a "light colored sedan," and made his getaway.  

Woodard was pronounced dead on arrival at Roosevelt Hospital on 59th street.  His death now tragically leaves behind a fatherless 4-year-old.  Given the way the shooting played out, it appears to authorities as though this was a planned assassination of sorts, although it could have been a random gang-initiation killing that played out as if it was a planned hit.  

After investigating Woodard's background, it was discovered that he actually had a pretty extensive list of run-ins with the law for various crimes, so he could've made some serious enemies over the years which ultimately resulted in his murder.  Check out the information the New York Daily News gathered on the murder of Brandon Linxoln Woodard:

"He got in a scrap with a bodyguard for R&B star Usher at a Las Vegas concert in 2004 — accusing the bodyguard of giving him a wedgie so severe that he bled. "That was one of the more creative descriptions of getting thrown out of a place I have ever heard," the bodyguard, Elijah Shaw, said Monday night. Woodard served time on a battery rap.

"He was due in court on Jan. 22 in Beverly Hills on a felony cocaine possession charge, officials said. In 2009, he pleaded no contest to a felony and a misdemeanor hit-and-run charge, and in 2008 he pleaded no contest to two misdemeanor counts of theft for stealing from a Whole Foods and another upscale market. In 2009, he was wanted for stealing wine from a supermarket near Los Angeles. He led a chase into a neighboring town and escaped."

Source: hiphopwired.com