Is it possible to drive a vehicle 75 feet into somebody in self-defense? The Davie Police seem to think so.
Almost three months after prolific graffiti and tattoo artist Jonathan Corso — who plastered South Florida with his tag, "Ynot" — was killed after being mowed down by a Cadillac Escalade in a Davie strip club parking lot, some details are finally beginning to emerge from cops. But the information sparks more questions than answers, and the biggest one is this: Why hasn't anybody been criminally charged?
According to a search warrant, 32-year-old Deerfield Beach resident Reynaldo Rodriguez claimed Corso and his friends "tried to rob me so I ran him over" around 4 a.m. July 28 at the Eden Cabaret, where Corso was celebrating his 21st birthday.
The warrant says Rodriguez accelerated in reverse to hit "several people," including Corso.
Rodriguez was arrested twice last year for marijuana possession, and he was ticketed in 2008 for speeding without a seat belt. Corso was cuffed numerous times in his life, but only for graffiti-related crimes. His friends claim he had never been in a fight in his life. His mother scoffs at the robbery defense: "First he says Jonathan's trying to rob him," Michelle Corso-Motolla says, "and then he says he drove back, trying to hit him. It makes no sense."
Davie Police have not returned Riptide's phone calls requesting comment. A detective recently told Corso-Motolla that the department is waiting for analysis from a crash expert, she says. But the months-long delay has Corso's friends — including members of the prolific Miami graffiti crew MSG — speculating that his graffiti rap sheet has cops feeling apathetic. Or worse, that the strip club — which has seen dozens of violent incidents over the past several years — somehow has influence in the police department.
"How could there be not even an arrest at this point?" says MSG cofounder Crome, who faced a major vandalism charge in the late '90s. "I did graffiti, and my face was plastered all over the nightly news."
