“Purge” star Frank Grillo blasted rising crime in Los Angeles after the brutal slaying of his boxing trainer in August.
The “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” star lamented the loss of his friend and boxing trainer Azuma Bennett after he was murdered.
Grillo said that Bennett “made everybody feel good about training,” and added that, “I don’t know what’s happened to Los Angeles that a beautiful guy like this gets shot and killed over nothing.”
Bennett, 30, a well-liked trainer of celebrities and professional fighters at Fortune Boxing Gym in Hollywood, was shot “at least eight times” outside of a marijuana dispensary. He died en route to a local hospital on Aug. 12.
“I do know that his clients were waiting for him at 10 a.m. and he missed that session because he was already gone,” Fortune owner Tamara Fortune said about her employee’s tragic death.
Grillo was vocally upset in his Instagram posts last week, where he shared multiple news articles about Bennett’s slaying with the captions, “Maybe we can force the hand of the powers that be to get off their a—- and fix this s–t,” and “We in LA need to wake up to what has become a common occurrence.”
Los Angeles isn’t the only city with out of control crime. Bui Van Phu, 55, a felon convicted of raping a 17-year-old girl in 1989, who is on lifetime parole of the crime was released on no bail in New York City, after sucker punching a man outside of a restaurant last week. His victim, 52-year-old Jesus Cortez, has a fractured skull and is in a coma.
The fierce public outcry over Phu’s release prompted New York’s Democrat Governor Kathy Hochul to order his arrest. On his Saturday parole hearing, his parole officer described him as “a persistent violent felony offender history. Mr. Bui is a registered level three sex offender, the highest level on the sexual offender registry. Mr. Bui continues to be an imminent threat to the community.”
Judge Lumarie Maldonado Cruz has ordered the sex offender to remain jailed until his upcoming hearing.