Murder At a Popular NYC Karaoke Club: What Went Wrong

On the evening of August 3^rd rapper Lil Kim celebrated her 34^th birthday in part by making a brief appearance at a popular Times Square karaoke spot. It is a huge venue that provides karaoke singers with an American Idol like experience with a large stage, back up dancers, and audience voting.

But something went wrong on this night. 24 year old Kennedy airport employee Ingrid Rivera came to the club as a fan of Lil Kim’s. This was not her first time at the club and she had come with friends. Despite this, she found herself alone and intoxicated, looking underneath bathroom stalls in the men’s restroom. The bathroom attendant promptly called for security after unsuccessful attempts to get the inebriated Rivera to leave. Club security escorted her out.

The ugliness begins after Rivera unsuccessfully pleads for reentry to the club. Her friends then come out to implore with security guards outside for Rivera’s reentry, but the verdict is the same; Rivera is not allowed back in. Rivera is then approached by a bartender’s assistant, who offered her a way back inside. Lacking the luxury of sober judgment, Ms. Rivera followed the barback to the rear of the club and entered via a common garbage entrance shared with the neighboring Sbarro’s. They took a service elevator up to the roof where Rivera was then bludgeoned to death by the barback, her body stuffed into a maintenance closet; all out of site of everyone in the club.

Several days later, the barback, Syed Rahman confessed to the killing. The story of this crime is especially titillating for the media because it tangentially involves rapper Lil Kim who is not only famous, but infamous for her own stint in a federal detention center after lying about a shooting she was a witness to.

A swirl of controversy has engulfed the club, which is Spotlight Live, as well. Open since last year, the club is already a defendant in at least one wrongful death lawsuit. The suit, brought by the parents of a stabbing victim who was assaulted in front of the club after being ejected by the club’s security. After Ms. Rivera’s death New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly acknowledged that the department would have a “focused look” at the club’s practices.

But a preliminary look at the facts shows that this incident was less a failing of Spotlight Live and quite possibly  a moral failing. Indeed the club took every imaginable precaution to prevent violence. These are the undisputed facts:

So far, everyone involved is hardpressed to find anything the club did wrong that night. Indeed, the true failing could be on the part of Ms. Rivera’s friends, who promptly went back inside the club, leaving a clearly intoxicated Rivera outside to fend for herself. News reports have not detailed any information about the people accompanying Rivera that night, so we have no way knowing if these were indeed her friends or just acquaintances, and of course there could be some explanation for their actions that would not justify laying the blame at their feet. Regardless of the circumstances though, this story does provide an opportunity to emphasize the importance of personal safety when partying out on the town.

Most people –especially women- party in groups precisely because it is safer, everyone looks out for each other. We all have seen the awareness campaigns on television that implore us to bring along a designated driver. But this strategy only works if the group takes some responsibility for each other. The responsibility for your personal safety in the club community is actually a shared one; there is the legal responsibility of the club to provide a safe, orderly, atmosphere, there is the personal responsibility of individual patrons to ensure they have a safe mode of travel home if they have been drinking, and if you have chosen to party in a group, it is the moral responsibility of your friends to live by the same mantra as the U.S. Marines;  leave no one behind.