The man charged with the murder of rapper Pop Smoke, Corey Walker, claims he voiced opposition to any violence towards the artist before he was fatally shot.

In Los Angeles on Friday (October 15), Walker’s defense lawyer, Christopher Darden, claimed his client “specifically voiced his opposition to any violence” before Pop Smoke was killed in his rented Hollywood Hills during a home-invasion robbery in February 2020. He was 20 years old.

In the filing – as per court documents obtained by Rolling Stone – Darden wrote: “It is clear from the evidence that [Walker] did not enter the house, was not armed, and did not personally kill the victim.

Darden referred to Walker’s alleged insistence that, should it become necessary for the suspects to defend themselves, “they should use a flower vase rather than shoot someone”. “The evidence is clear that the defendant did not share the actual killer’s intent to kill,” he wrote.

Darden filed for a motion to dismiss the murder and robbery charges brought against Walker. A hearing for the new motion is set to take place on December 3.

Prosecutors allege that Walker and four other defendants (three charged as minors) arrived at Pop Smoke’s rented home shortly after 4am, when the rapper was having a shower, in search of cash and valuables. The masked assailants then allegedly confronted the rapper, before he was gunned down by a suspect who, at the time, was 15 years old.

Darden also argued in the new motion that the firearm which killed Jackson did not belong to Walker. “There is nothing in the record to indicate this defendant knew that more than one weapon was going to be taken inside the house.

“There is nothing to indicate that the weapon used in the killing was the heat this defendant provided to a suspect.”

Last weekend, Jackson’s gravesite was reportedly vandalised. The marble plaque on his crypt at Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery was cracked and broken, vandals apparently having tried to drag the musician’s casket from his mausoleum.

The cost of the damage caused is said to be around £361 (US$500).