Rapper FBG Duck was shopping for a birthday present for his son when a gang rival spotted him inside a children’s boutique in the Gold Coast and made a fateful phone call, federal prosecutors told jurors Tuesday.
Within 27 minutes, two cars carrying six people associated with the O Block faction of the Black Disciples drove from the Parkway Gardens housing complex on the South Side and found FBG Duck waiting outside the Dolce and Gabbana store at 68 E. Oak St., prosecutors said.
“They had one mission — to kill Duck,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Caitlin Walgamuth said during opening statements of a murder and racketeering trial that’s expected to last weeks.
The rapper, real name Carlton Weekly, was shot 16 times in less than 20 seconds, Walgamuth said.
On trial are Charles Liggins; Kenneth Roberson; Tacarlos Offerd; Christopher Thomas; Marcus Smart; and Ralph Turpin, who allegedly flagged FBG Duck’s location. Another suspect took his own life during the investigation.
Their attorneys argued that the evidence is weak and they questioned the integrity of the witnesses set to take the stand, noting some are being paid and others have negotiated deals to cooperate.
The defendants all wore white Oxford shirts or full suits in the courtroom, their shackled legs hidden behind a skirt covering the tables used by the defense.
FBG Duck’s mother sat in the gallery and let out a cry when Walgamuth began describing the shooting, which also wounded her son’s girlfriend and a bystander.
Walgamuth said the suspects wanted to kill FBG Duck to “maintain or increase their position in O Block,” which she noted had long been at war with the Tookaville, or STL, faction of the Gangster Disciples that Duck claimed.
O Block is headquartered in Parkway Gardens at 64th Street and King Drive. Tookaville is tethered to the intersection of 63rd Street and St. Lawrence Avenue, just blocks away.
While Walgamuth noted the “rivalry is about territory proximity,” she acknowledged it has been stoked by drill rap music and retaliatory killings.
O Block “wanted to be feared in the streets and online” and used music and social media to target rivals and claim responsibility for violence, Walgamuth said.
Less than a month before FBG Duck was killed, Walgamuth told jurors, he released a scathing song that taunted O Block by naming at least six dead associates, including Liggins’ brother.
Jasmine Tucker, the government’s first witness and the mother of FBG Duck’s son, told jurors that the rapper had been the target of diss tracks from rap superstar Lil Durk and his protege King Von, a purported O Block leader named Dayvon Bennett.
Roberson told a cooperating witness he took part in FBG Duck’s killing because King Von had “placed a hit” on his rival, prosecutors have said. Walgamuth noted that King Von supplied cash to his crew and bought them guns and diamond pendants before he was killed in a shooting months after FBG Duck was gunned down.
Walgamuth described O Block as a “criminal enterprise” with a clear hierarchy that controls the drug trade around Parkway Gardens, which is also known as O Block. Members are expected to pay dues that have been used to buy guns and bond associates out of jail, she added.
Roberson and Turpin are members of other Black Disciples factions that are “cliqued up” with O Block, prosecutors have said.
The government plans to call a range of witnesses and has cited among its evidence surveillance video of the attack, crime scene photos and the rap music at the heart of the killing.
But Offerd’s lawyer, John Somerville, argued the evidence doesn’t back up the charges against his client, a claim echoed by other attorneys.
“The government can’t tell you who did anything,” he said. “It’s a guessing game.”
Liggins’ attorney, Gregory Mitchell, used his opening remarks to describe the birth of Chicago drill rap in the 2010s and the rise of Chief Keef, a former Parkway Gardens resident and friend of Liggins who became the genre’s breakout star.
“This is how you make it. … You create an image,” Mitchell said, noting Liggins took on the moniker “C Murda” and started posting videos to Instagram and YouTube, just like his successful friends.
But Mitchell denied Liggins played any role in the shooting and insisted O Block isn’t a criminal enterprise.
“It’s a place,” he said, “and a place where drill rap was born.”
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