The New York Daily News reports some of the victims involved in the triple-murder suicide in Brooklyn early Monday morning were Iranian expatriates in the indie rock band The Yellow Dogs.
UPDATE 11/11/2013 9:18 p.m.: The Associated Press now reports the shooter was not in The Yellow Dogs, but was a member of another band. Authorities initially thought the shooter was a former member of The Yellow Dogs. Two members of The Yellow Dogs, Arash and Soroush Farazmand, who were brothers, were killed in the shooting. Another musician from a different band, Ali Eskandarian, was also killed.
The shooter has been identified as Ali Akbar Mahammadi Rafie.
Taken from the band's Facebook page, this photo is tagged as follows: Arash Farazmand on the bottom left, Siavash Karampour top left, Koory Mirz middle bottom, Soroush Farazmand top right, and Ali Eskandarian bottom right.
According to The New York Post, Rafie allegedly went to 318 Maujer Street in East Williamsburg a little after midnight and opened fire, wounding a man outside the building, before fatally shooting the three musicians inside. He then reportedly went to the roof of the building, where he shot himself in the head.
According to The Post, the wounded man was 22-year-old Sasan Sadeghpourosko, who was shot twice in the arm. The AP reports Sadeghpourosko is an artist. He is in stable condition.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said there had apparently been a dispute over money.
In Iran, playing rock music is a punishable offense. The Yellow Dogs, who were fixtures in the Tehran underground rock scene, fled the country in 2010 and were granted asylum in the United States, where they settled down in Brooklyn. In a 2009 interview with CNN, the band is shown playing in a soundproofed basement of an apartment building in Tehran. (See Yellow Dogs beginning at 1:38.)
In a NowThis News video profile of the band from earlier this year, one of the members said that if he were to go back to Iran, he would probably be killed.
The band referred to their sound as "dance-punk-psychadelic." Here's another interview, posted by Emusic, in which the band members talk about their time in Tehran and New York. The Yellow Dogs were hoping to embark on a world tour, and to play a show in Istanbul, Turkey, where their family and friends in Iran could afford to travel and see them perform.
And here's the music video for the band's song "Dance Floor."
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