Chicago police were bracing for retaliation shootings on the South Side after a rapper was killed in a brazen Gold Coast attack, possibly because he had recently made a video featuring “derogatory statements” about rival gang members who have died.
Carlton Weekly, 26, who performed under the name FBG Duck, was a member of a Gangster Disciples faction that has been involved in a fierce feud with the Black Disciples on the South Side, according to police.
Officers in at least four police districts — Wentworth, Grand Crossing, Gresham and Englewood — have been warned to use “extreme caution” because of the “high probability of further violence,” according to an advisory issued by the department.
“Intelligence suggests that both these gangs are in possession of large caliber and high capacity firearms,” it adds.
The neighborhood where Weekly’s gang faction operates was described as a “high threat level conflict” area. It is roughly bordered by 58th and 66th streets, and St. Lawrence and Calumet avenues.
Weekly was shot Tuesday afternoon while standing in line in front of a high-end clothing store in the first block of East Oak Street, according to police. His family said he had four children under the age of 10.
Two cars, a dark Ford Fusion and a gray Chrysler 300, pulled up and four gunmen jumped out and opened fire about 4:30 p.m., police said.
Weekly was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. His girlfriend, who told police she was waiting in a parked car, was shot twice in the left wrist. She was taken to Amita Health St. Joseph Hospital, where she was stabilized. A 36-year-old man was hit in the back and leg and taken to Northwestern in serious condition.
Weekly’s family described him as a talented musician with a “big heart” who struggled with violence and gang conflicts.
His older brother Jermaine Robinson was shot and killed in a double homicide in Woodlawn on the South Side in 2017, according to police and Weekly’s Apple Music biography. Robinson was also a rapper who performed under the name FBG Brick.
The biography describes other violence in Weekly’s life: “He was stabbed by a girlfriend and (had) multiple rivalries with other gangs and rappers.”
Weekly’s mother LaSheena Weekly declined to comment Wednesday afternoon, except to say, “My son was a legend.”
His aunt, Sherrie Weekly, was driving from her home in South Bend, Indiana, to be with LaSheena Weekly. “The world lost a good man. He had a big heart and he loved his family and friends,” Sherrie Weekly said. “He would help anybody. He was truly a good person.”
Her nephew had several siblings, three of whom have died — including Robinson — and five who live in the Chicago area. He leaves a daughter and three sons. “He was just talented. He had so much to give. He touched so many people’s hearts.”
But Mayor Lori Lightfoot described Weekly as someone who “fancies himself a rapper but is also a member of a gang.” She said he had been “livestreaming his travels through the city and he was found.”
“What we’re seeing is a manifestation of a larger problem, which is that way too many young men, and particularly young men of color, have access to guns and are willing to use those guns to settle petty grievances,” Lightfoot said. “There’s been an ongoing conflict between his gang and another.”
Weekly had recently made a rap video “where he made derogatory statements toward deceased members of the Black Disciples,” a rival gang, according to the department advisory.
Among those insulted in the video was Odee Perry, namesake of the O-Block faction of the Black Disciples. Weekly belonged to the Tookaville faction of the rival Gangster Disciples, named for a young man killed in the same conflict not long before Perry, according to police.
If Weekly were killed in retaliation, it would be the latest instance of gang violence linked to rap music in Chicago. While many videos on social media depict Chicago’s street violence and include online threats, documenting a link between a video and a shooting is not as common.
In 2012, Joseph Coleman, an 18-year-old rapper who went by the name “Lil JoJo,” was shot and killed in the Englewood neighborhood. Chicago police investigated whether a war of words between Coleman and other rappers through music or social media led to his killing.
Among his rivals was rap star Chief Keef, who was accused of taunting Coleman in a tweet in the hours after his death. Chief Keef claimed, though, that his Twitter account had been hacked.
In 2015, rapper Young Pappy, whose real name was Shaquon Thomas, was gunned down in the Uptown neighborhood, a week after a video posted online showed him making fun of a rival gang while pretending to hold a gun in his hands.
The 20-year-old Thomas was allegedly part of a Gangster Disciples faction that had been feuding with another of the gang’s factions on the North Side. Prior to his death, Chicago police said Thomas was a target in at least two other shootings in the Rogers Park neighborhood that left two people dead, including a 17-year-old boy at a McDonald’s restaurant and a photographer who was waiting for a bus.
In 2017, a South Side rapper Shootashellz, whose real name was Cedron Doles, was gunned down after taunting gang rivals, some of them already dead, with his rap lyrics. Doles’ death in the Auburn Gresham community ended up being part of an investigation by Chicago police and the FBI into an internal gang conflict within the Black P Stones.
Chicago Tribune’s Paige Fry contributed.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to revise the location of the shooting.
