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Weeks after shooting, DJ Blaze dies
BY MITCHELL FREEDMAN
Newsday Staff Writer
December 23, 2006, 11:32 PM EST
Hip-hop DJ Carl Blaze died Saturday from gunshot wounds he sustained earlier this month, police said late Saturday night.
Blaze, 30, who had worked for Power 105.1 FM for nearly three years, was shot 13 times on Dec. 7 in the hallway of a residential building on Academy Street in Inwood, after dropping some friends off, police said.
Blaze died of his injuries at 3:52 p.m. Saturday at Harlem Hospital, a police spokesman said.
On the night he was shot, Blaze had deejayed at a club in the Bronx, and stopped to drop off his friends before heading back to his home in Elmwood Park, N.J., according to officials.
Blaze, who was born Carlos Rivera, grew up in Washington Heights. His radio station boasted that his live remote show on Fridays from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. and Saturdays from 9 to 10 p.m, had an audience of more than two million people.
He and his wife, Yvonne, had two children, ages 1 and 7.
Police said his gold-and-diamond chain was decorated with the letters "CB."
A childhood friend, DJ N.EFX, who was born Nestor Aurith, said he had talked with Blaze a short time before the shooting, and that nothing appeared to be wrong.
Blaze "had no problems with anyone... He was always into his music and his kids," Aurith said during a hospital visit the day after the shooting.
Detectives were reportedly checking to see if Blaze had any enemies or personal problems, or if there had been an argument at the club where he had been.
