The information swirling around about the Rick Ross shooting right now is fat on rumor, light on facts. But among the speculation passing from mouth to mouth is that the gunfire directed at the rap mogul was connected to his well-publicized beef with the Gangster Disciples, a Chicago-based gangbanger outfit with branches across the country.
See also:
- Rick Ross Gets Death Threats From Gangster Disciples, Cancels MMG Tour Dates
- Rick Ross on Gangster Disciples, Canceled MMG Tour: "Never Was It Due to Any Threats."
To recap, things soured between the Bawse and the GD after Ross began using their gang signs and iconography, not to mention referencing the gang's founder, Larry Hoover, in one of his tunes. The gang issued a number of videos basically declaring a fatwa on the Teflon Don -- either Bawse pays a fine for co-opting the gang's symbolism or else.
Last November, as this all started heating up, GD chapters in North Carolina, Alabama, and Georgia all began posting videos online threatening the Bawse. Ross responded by canceling a six-date swing through the Southeast. The Bawse's people maintained the cancellation was due to bad promotion, not any threats. But still, if you check out the videos, shit seems serious enough.
A Florida chapter of the GD also seems to have posted a November 11 video threatening Ross. In this clip below, you can see them wearing "MBK" shirts, which allegedly stand for "Mayback Killers" -- a reference to Bawse's label.
Now, this is where we start drifting into some factually contested ground. When all this first started going off in December, numerous media outlets reported that the Chicago Police Department had opened an investigation into the threats.
This week, New Times reached out to the department about that investigation only to learn that the CPD never had an investigation into the GD and Ross.
"The media reports were erroneous and no police source was attributed regarding an investigation being conducted here," Lt. Maureen Biggane, a commander with the Chicago Police News Affairs, wrote in an email.
Also, this week a guy with the Atlanta GD named KK gave an interview with ForbezDVD.com claiming the group had nothing to do with the Fort Lauderdale attempt.
How legit is all this? Could the shooting have been done from some breakout GD group? Or some affiliate? Or even the result of some other problem Ross had in the street? Fort Lauderdale police are still tight-lipped about the investigation.
"We're treating this as an isolated incident that happened in our city, and we're following up on all leads," the FLPD'S DeAnna Garcia told New Times on Tuesday. Garcia also said she had no information at the time on a GD connection to Sunday's incident.
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