New York ( CNN ) -- Three members of two popular Iranian indie bands who were living and working in the United States were shot and killed in Brooklyn early Monday by a fellow rocker who then turned the gun on himself , police said . The dead included Soroush Farazmand , 27 , whose rock band the Yellow Dogs was featured in a 2009 CNN report about Iran 's burgeoning underground rock scene . Police found the guitarist dead from a shot to the chest in a second-floor bedroom of the East Williamsburg building where band members lived and practiced . Farazmand 's brother , Arash , 28 , a drummer with the band the Free Keys who later joined the Yellow Dogs , was also shot and killed at the same location , as was a third Iranian musician , Ali Eskandarian , 35 . An Iranian street artist was shot in the arm , police said . The shooter , who took his own life on the rooftop of the building , was identified as Ali Akbar Mohammadi Rafie , 29 , police said . A spokesman for the Yellow Dogs told CNN that he had been a member of the Free Keys . Ali Salehezadeh , who handles publicity for the Yellow Dogs , told CNN that a `` petty conflict '' resulted in a break of communication between the gunman and the band . New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters that the gunman used a .308-caliber assault rifle , apparently to settle a `` dispute ... over money '' between the bands . The gunman shot and killed one of the victims through a window before entering the building in the East Williamsburg neighborhood and shooting the others on the second and third floors , Kelly said . Rafie shot himself on the roof after scuffling with at least one of two other people who hid in a bathroom . In the 2009 CNN story , members of Yellow Dogs described performing in an improvised , clandestine music studio to avoid the wrath of Islamic authorities . The band settled in East Williamsburg after attention generated by the group 's contribution to the soundtrack of a film called `` No One Knows About Persian Cats , '' a movie about Iran 's underground music scene that won an award at the Cannes Film Festival . `` The law has a problem with rock music so we ca n't play it , '' Siavash Karampour , the Yellow Dogs band leader , told CNN in 2009 . Karampour was working at another job at the time of the shooting , Salehezadeh told CNN . Karampour told CNN that Iranian authorities viewed the band members as `` anarchists . '' `` They 're like my brothers , '' Karampour said of the band members . `` They 're more close than my brothers . '' In the CNN story , Yellow Dog members described their brand of music as rock played with bad equipment and said it touched on subjects ranging from Iranian oppression to American greed . CNN 's Reza Sayah , Nic Robertson and Azadeh Ansari contributed to this report .
Members of popular New York - based Iranian rock bands die in murder - suicide . Gunman shoots and kills three , injures another , before turning gun on himself . The dead were members of Iranian indie bands the Yellow ##s and Free Keys . Suicide is identified as 29-year - old man who reportedly had been band member .