Who was ‘Baby Cino,’ the aspiring Miami rapper killed in a highway ambush?

“Baby Cino” was an aspiring Miami rapper killed Wednesday in an ambush shooting on the Palmetto Expressway.

The 20-year-old, whose real name is Timothy Starks, was still trying to make his mark on the music scene. His main song, called “Big Haiti Shottas,” focused on violence at an apartment building on Northwest Third Avenue and 56th Street in Miami-Dade County.

The video, also dedicated to Gary “Melo” Laguerre, an 18-year-old gunned down in a drive-by shooting in 2020 outside a Brownsville market, had 21,000 views on YouTube before police identified Starks as a shooting victim on Thursday. By Friday morning, after his death was announced, the views had grown to 33,000.

Starks, one law enforcement source told the Miami Herald., was associated with a Little Haiti area gang known as “Boss Life.” Just hours before the shooting, he had been released from jail after an arrest on charges of carrying a concealed weapon after his car was pulled over in a traffic stop around 2 a.m. Wednesday. Officers found a fully loaded Glock 32 in the car, an arrest report said.

According to jail records, Starks was booked into Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center soon after. After posting bond, he was recorded as released at 2:10 p.m. A friend, Dante’ Collins Banks, also 20, picked him up from jail.

Minutes later, as the red Nissan they were riding in turned onto the Palmetto Expressway, Starks and Banks were suddenly ambushed by a gunman in another car in a wild daylight shooting in the middle of traffic. Starks died in the hail of gunfire, shot in the head. He was still wearing the wristband given to corrections inmates. Banks, police said, was wounded.

Detectives have not identified a suspect, but did say “a dark-colored vehicle was seen fleeing the area at a high rate of speed.”

Police say the shooter fired at least 40 times.

This story was originally published March 18, 2022 at 10:58 AM.