Cashae Williams grew tearful Wednesday when federal prosecutors started asking about the brazen daytime killing of her boyfriend, Chicago drill rapper FBG Duck.
“I need a break,” Williams told Judge Martha Pacold, who’s overseeing a murder and racketeering trial stemming from the allegedly gang-related attack.
When Williams returned to the stand, she offered the trial’s first eyewitness account of the shooting in the heart of the Gold Coast in August 2020. She recalled snapping into action when she saw a gunman jump out of a moving car and start shooting at the rapper, whose real name is Carlton Weekly.
“I picked up Duck’s gun and started shooting back,” she said during the second day of trial at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, masking the emotion that had previously interrupted her testimony.
Prosecutors allege that six men — four shooters and two getaway drivers linked to the O Block faction of the Black Disciples — traveled from a notorious South Side housing complex to kill FBG Duck after a gang associate spotted him in the tony downtown neighborhood.
The suspects allegedly found him waiting in line outside the Dolce and Gabbana Store, 68 E. Oak St., where Williams was sitting in her car when the gunfire erupted. She grabbed his gun and fired back through the car’s window, she said.
Williams testified that she then waited for the gunmen to flee before she checked on FBG Duck, who tried to hide behind her car as he was shot 16 times.
It wasn’t until Williams began tending to FBG Duck that she realized she’d been hit twice in her wrist during the exchange of gunfire — injuries that required surgery to retrieve a lodged bullet. Another person was also wounded in the attack.
On trial are Charles Liggins, 32; Kenneth Roberson, 30; Tacarlos Offerd, 32; Christopher Thomas, 24; Marcus Smart, 24; and Ralph Turpin, 34 — described by prosecutors as “members and associates” of O Block. Another suspect took his own life during the investigation.
Although Williams said she was already well aware of FBG Duck’s music when they met earlier in 2020, she claimed she didn’t know much about his affiliation with the Tookaville, or STL, faction of the Gangster Disciples, which prosecutors said was locked in a lengthy gang war with O Block.
At the same time, she acknowledged she was on the set of FBG Duck’s music video for “Dead Bitches,” a scathing diss that prosecutors say inflamed the gang conflict. “When I was around, he really was about his family,” Williams said.
Listening in the gallery were FBG Duck’s mom and his son’s mother, Jasmine Tucker, who previously testified about O Block and acknowledged that she and the rapper avoided his rivals and certain areas. That included Parkway Gardens, the sprawling apartment complex along King Drive that prosecutors say served as O Block’s power base.
The rest of Wednesday’s testimony came from Chicago police officials who helped compile video evidence from the shooting scene, Parkway Gardens and the route allegedly taken by the suspects.
An officer’s testimony was cut short at the end of the day’s proceedings amid a dispute over what evidence from the complex should be allowed.
Before that, Sgt. Kevin Lyjak explained that police had relied on a network of cameras and license plate readers to determine that the cars used in the shooting belonged to Offerd and Roberson.
Roberson’s lawyer, Steve Greenberg, echoed the longstanding concerns of civil libertarians while questioning Lyjak about the department’s license plate-reading capabilities.
“It’s kind of scary,” Greenberg said.
