By Ismael AbduSalaam
Atlanta authorities are still searching for the killer of James Brown son in law Darren “Chip” Lumar, who was shot to death on a Wednesday (November 5) night in front of his Buckhead home.
According to eyewitness and authorities, the shooting was likely a carefully planned hit.
“I heard three gun shots, pow pow pow, really quickly and I jumped up,” neighbor Michael Bang told CBS channel 46. “We ran down here and we saw gun shells on the ground and blood and we saw our neighbor drive off.”
The killer was able to escape around the corner to a waiting getaway car.
Lamar, fatally wounded, was able to drive 4 miles to Northside Hospital before succumbing to his wounds.
Lamar was last in the news in January 2007, when he cryptically speculated that the death of his famous father in law was not due to natural causes.
“There’s not a bone in my body that believes my father in law died from congestive heart failure,” Lumar stated then without elaborating.
James Brown passed away on Christmas 2006, an invaluable contributor to Hip-Hop culture’s development through his music’s extended breakbeats and rhythms.
Into the 80s, Brown further legitimized the new genre by collaborating with Hip-Hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa on the track “Unity.”
Lumar’s marriage to Brown’s daughter Yamma was volatile, and ended in divorce in 2007.
That year, she faced criminal charges for stabbing Lumar the day before her father’s funeral.
In 2006, a former female employee of Lumar’s accused him of rape.
The case was still pending at the time of his death.
Police speculate Lumar’s “business dealings” may have been the motive for his murder.
At the hospital, authorities retrieved $4000 in cash from his body.
Lumar had been described as a “prominent businessman” and worked as a managing partner with a local firm.
At press time, no arrests have been made in the case.