Federal and state prosecutors now say a single gang faction on Chicago’s South Side committed 14 murders and shot at least 18 other people in just two years as part of a brazen crime spree meant to tighten the group’s grip on the West Chatham neighborhood.
From March 2019 through April 2021, authorities say, members and associates of Faceworld — a faction of the Gangster Disciples — used stolen cars to track down rival gang members, sometimes targeting funerals and memorial services.
The faction — whose territory is bounded by 79th Street, 83rd Street, Vincennes Avenue and State Street — also carried out several armed robberies, a home invasion and sexual assault, and trafficked cocaine and heroin in Illinois and Iowa, prosecutors allege.
“The defendants and other Faceworld members and associates used threats and intimidation to prevent victims and witnesses from cooperating with law enforcement,” the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago said in a statement last week. “Faceworld members allegedly promoted their violent enterprise on social media, posting comments, photos, and videos to proclaim membership in the gang, taunt rivals, and boast about murders and other acts of violence.”
Since 2021, six federal indictments have been brought against members of Faceworld, according to a review of court records.
The most recent federal charges, unveiled last month, linked the gang to 13 murders and several other shootings — including the killings of two women who worked as neighborhood peacekeepers and a mass shooting outside the funeral of a slain gang rival in which 15 people wounded.
If convicted, three defendants would be eligible for the death penalty.
Meanwhile, one of the federal defendants also faces a murder charge in Cook County that stems from another fatal shooting in July 2019.
Prosecutors say Faceworld’s primary rivals were the Wuga World and 900 factions, also based on the South Side.
Most of the violence charged in the latest indictment is par for the course in modern Chicago gang conflicts. One shooting spurs retaliation, a “get back.” There’s opening fire on a group at a memorial for another murder victim, social media threats that manifest in the real world.
The first slaying charged in the newly unsealed indictment was the March 2019 killing of Antwon Fields, a drill rapper who performed under the name “Lil Mister.” Fields, an affiliate of Wuga World who was shot in the 7400 block of South Harvard Avenue, was a cousin of Chicago rapper Lil Durk, who’s facing federal murder-for-hire charges in Los Angeles.
About two weeks later, two women — Brittani Rice and Senobia Brantley — were shot and killed as they sat in a vehicle in the 7700 block of South Eggleston Avenue. Police officials were quick to say the shooting was “targeted,” but downplayed the possibility of a gang dispute.
“There’s no gang conflict in the area, so it’s puzzling, actually, to have this act occur here in this community,” Chicago police Capt. Gilberto Calderon told reporters days after the shooting.
The following July, Chantell Grant and Andrea Stoudemire, two members of the anti-violence group Mothers and Men Against Senseless Killings (MASK), were shot to death as they stood in the 7500 block of South Stewart Avenue. Another man, Donald Weathersby, was also shot in the arm.
MASK founder Tamar Manasseh called the shooting “one of the saddest nights of my life.”
“For mothers to be killed in a place where mothers go to seek safety and sisterhood, I take that as a personal threat,” Manasseh told reporters shortly after the shooting. “Because when you come for one of us, you better believe they came for all of us.”
A week later, Calvin Seay was shot to death outside his home in the 7300 block of South Stewart, just two blocks north of where Grant and Stoudemire were killed.
Prosecutors say Seay was outside with his brother, and Faceworld members “believed (them) to be rival gang members, and together decided to shoot at Seay in retaliation for a shooting that had happened in Faceworld Enterprise territory the night before.”
The next day, prosecutors allege, several Faceworld members “were driving in Wuga World territory with the intent to shoot up a memorial taking place for Calvin Seay.”
They soon saw Cornelius Jordan, “who they believed to be affiliated with Wuga World,” driving in the 6800 block of South Wentworth Avenue. Faceworld members opened fire, killing Jordan and wounding another woman.
A week later, Faceworld members would, again, shoot and wound Donald Weathersby, prosecutors say. The next year, in July 2020, he was killed in the 7400 block of South Stewart, just a day after a member of Faceworld was murdered a few blocks away.
Weathersby’s services were held a week later at a funeral home in the 1000 block of West 79th Street. Prosecutors allege Faceworld members targeted mourners in a drive-by shooting. Fifteen people were shot and wounded.
The alleged attacks by Faceworld members were not limited to the city. One of the killings in the latest indictment was that of Osama Ibrahim, shot to death in October 2020 outside his home in southwest suburban Romeoville.
One member of Faceworld — who died before the indictment was filed — wanted Ibrahim dead “because he believed Ibrahim was a member of the rival gang 900 and that Ibrahim had publicized information about Faceworld Enterprise members’ addresses,” prosecutors said.
A day after the shooting, Romeoville police called it “a targeted attack.”
“It appears Ibrahim may have exchanged gunfire with two other male assailants. It is unknown at this time if Ibrahim knew his assailants, but all indications lead investigators to believe this was a singular incident,” police said.
The first federal charges against Faceworld members were unsealed in 2021, and other cases followed in 2023 and 2024.
Last year, a federal grand jury brought charges against four Faceworld members and associates who made threats against two victims who previously gave testimony in another Faceworld indictment.The next hearing in the latest indictment is scheduled for Jan. 28, court records show.
