Aspiring Oakland Rapper Shot To Death

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Aspiring Oakland rapper Bobby Hall Jr., who spoke out against violence, was shot to death Saturday inside a Oakland home. He is the second person in his family to be killed by violence.
"It's like deja vu. It's happening all over again. We're reliving this nightmare all over again," said Mona Hall, Bobby's mother.

Police say 25-year-old Bobby Hall was shot multiple times last night as he sat inside a house in the 6800 block of MacArthur Blvd. His father, Bobby Hall Sr., drove to the scene and had to identify him from a coroner's photo.

"I said let me see it, he had it in a digital camera -- I looked at it, and that was my son," said Hall Sr.

Police haven't speculated about a motive for the shooting. But friends and family say Bobby was a talented, happy-go-lucky guy with a job as a maintenance man. They find it hard to believe he was targeted.

In 1992, Bobby's older brother Jesse was shot and killed as he sat in a car outside the family's home in East Oakland's Sobrante Park neighborhood. Both Jesse and Bobby were in their 20s at the time of their deaths and both had careers in the music industry -- the Oakland Tribune recently wrote an article praising Bobby Hall's work.

Mona Hall wrote a book about losing a child to violence entitled "Thru A Mother's Eyes."