FBG Duck, the drill rapper whose given name was Carlton Weekly, was out shopping for his toddler’s birthday gift when he was shot and killed in Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood five years ago. According to a lawsuit by his mother, LaSheena Weekly, who watched her son’s final moments via police camera footage, Duck lay unaided on the ground for more than 15 minutes before he was taken to a hospital some five to 10 minutes away.
Weekly’s lawsuit raises a persistent chorus of concerns over Chicago’s emergency response times, The Trace’s Rita Oceguera reports. In her latest story, Oceguera dives into the data on Chicago medical emergency incidents, which show that EMS response times in the city have been getting worse.
The response to Duck’s death surfaced another issue: moral panic over the kind of music he made. Duck was considered a pioneer of drill, a subgenre of hip-hop that originated on Chicago’s South Side in the early 2010s. The music quickly became demonized for its violent rhetoric; city leaders designated it a “public safety risk.” After Duck’s death, then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot portrayed him as a gang member and Chicago police expressed concern that the incident could cause a “city-wide gang war” — assertions Weekly described as defamatory, and a distraction from the city’s responsibility to own up to its response to her son’s shooting.
In the years since, a more nuanced conversation about drill has cropped up. Media scholar Jabari M. Evans, also a rapper from Chicago, tells The Trace’s Justin Agrelo the music is both a reflection of the social forces that contribute to gun violence and a precarious route away from it. In a new book, Evans argues that, though the music grew from the structural inequities Black youth in Chicago have had to navigate, the lyrics’ most violent claims were actually a mix of truth and marketing — an image created to capitalize on social media audiences’ voyeuristic impulses for a peek inside impoverished neighborhoods.
“I’m always thinking about innovative ways that Black youth in urban environments are using technological tools in ways that often aren’t highlighted or don’t give them credit for their ingenuity, and in some cases, for their genius,” Evans said. “In the context of drill, there’s this idea that these young people are very nihilistic or violent. Most of these youth are framed as gang bangers from communities that are disregarded in certain ways. As with almost everything, there’s a larger story.”
From The Trace
Chicago Emergency Response Times Are Worsening. A Slain Rapper’s Mom Wants to Know Why.: A Trace analysis found that between Jan. 2021 and Nov. 2024, the rate of incidents with response times longer than six minutes grew by 4.6 percentage points.
How Chicago Drill Artists Hacked the Conversation about Gun Violence: In his new book, media scholar Jabari M. Evans explores how rappers use the subgenre to gain clout.
Can Pardoned Jan. 6 Rioters Face New Gun Charges?: The Trace analyzed the court records of some 1,500 clemency-eligible defendants to find an answer.
What to Know Today
The school shooters at Abundant Life Christian School and Antioch High School virtually crossed paths in online extremist forums that shared terrorist literature and praise for mass shooters. Researchers have been tracking how these communities further contribute to extremist violence. [ProPublica/NBC]
According to a recent study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, alcohol sales soar after mass shootings. The study implies that mass shootings heavily affect its surrounding community, leading people to cope by self-medicating. [Wisconsin Public Radio]
In Maryland, a local hospital system, LifeBridge Health, launched the Stop the Iron Pipeline to address the amount of out-of-state guns that have been trafficked into the state. The initiative has a strong focus on Interstate 95. [The Baltimore Banner]
On January 23, 2023, a Concord Farms employee went on a rampage at two farms in Half Moon Bay, California, fatally shooting seven people. Though survivors and employees of the same farm have been relocated to better living conditions, others who are housed at farmworker housing still live in harsh living conditions. [Mercury News]
Lawmakers in Alabama plan to start the 2025 session with a focus on criminal justice — especially as it relates to gun safety. Bills like HB 58, sponsored by Representative Chris England, would make unknown possession of a firearm, a Class A misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in jail and a fine of up to $6,000. [Alabama Reflector]
In October, State Trooper Thomas Mascia staged his own shooting on Southern State Parkway, in Nassau County, New York, fueling a multistate manhunt, prosecutors say. After shooting himself in the leg, Mascia reported a vehicle and driver that authorities spent days looking for. Last Friday, Mascia resigned from his position after being placed on unpaid suspension. He later pleaded not guilty on Monday morning to tampering with physical evidence. [Gothamist]
Announcement: The Trace’s Afea Tucker has been nominated for a 2025 Philly News Award in the public safety reporting category. The awards, from the Pen & Pencil Club, recognize outstanding coverage by storytellers, journalists, and newsmakers in the Philadelphia area. Voting has begun — cast yours here.
This section was written by Victoria Clark.
Data Point
About 63,000 — the number of emergency medical incidents Chicago EMS responded to last year in more than six minutes. Illinois measures EMS response times against a standard of six minutes; that’s one minute longer than the National Fire Protection Association’s widely followed five-minute standard. [The Trace]
Non Sequitur
A Marriage Proposal Spoken Entirely in Office Jargon
“This relationship has been such a value-add. Some of my friends were worried that it would take too long for us to get into alignment. But you have been an absolute rockstar.” [McSweeney’s]