Seconds before a fatal midday shooting seven years ago, authorities say a man popped out of a car near Avers Avenue and Ohio Street, covered his face with his shirt and warned:
“If y’all don’t get out of here, we’re about to come and spray.”
The gunfire came moments later in the 600 block of North Avers Avenue in what prosecutors say was a retaliatory killing by members of the brutal Four Corner Hustlers street gang.
The Chicago gang already was tied in a racketeering indictment to six killings between 2000 and 2003. But, in a detailed 110-page document filed Friday, federal prosecutors also linked the gang to three more killings, all in 2012.
The Four Corner Hustlers spent decades building and expanding a drug operation on the West Side and Southwest Side, federal authorities say. Several members face trial in September at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. Three other members who could face the death penalty are set to go on trial next year.
The new document doesn’t name the three murder victims. But they appear to include Cornell Ferguson and Johnqualus Turner, both 16, who were gunned down Aug. 2, 2012, in the 600 block of North Avers Avenue. The other killing took place July 2, 2012, but the document offers few details.
All three appear to have been retaliatory shootings. Prosecutors said the killing in July 2012 followed the shooting of the brother of Four Corner Hustler Rontrell Turnipseed. They say Labar “Bro Man” Spann — said to be the Four Corner Hustlers “chief” — ordered Turnipseed and Marchello Devine to shoot a rival gang member who shot Turnipseed’s brother.
The Aug. 2, 2012, shooting followed the Aug. 1, 2012, killing of Dominique “Snoopy” Green, described as an associate of the Four Corner Hustlers. Speaking with law enforcement in 2016 about Green, Four Corner Hustler Keith Chatman said he cried for two days after Green’s death, prosecutors said.
Chatman told authorities Green’s killer shot Green 11 times.
The shooting that claimed the lives of Ferguson and Turner followed the next day, records show. Prosecutors said the Four Corner Hustlers held two rival gang members responsible for Green’s killing and targeted their drug-selling operation.
That shooting happened just before 1 p.m. on a weekday, 30 seconds after a witness was warned, “We’re about to come and spray.”
Prosecutors say a white van carrying Spann and two other Four Corner Hustlers blocked traffic while Chatman and fellow gang member Justin Cook opened fire from inside a Nissan sedan. They say Chatman fired an “AK-47-style assault weapon” from the rear passenger seat while Cook fired a handgun from the front passenger seat.
A third victim was shot in the leg but survived.
Later, authorities say, Spann complained that they were supposed to wait to start shooting until they saw one of the rival gang members he blamed for Green’s death.
Chatman allegedly said, “F--- ’em, they can’t work out there no more.”
Contributing: Sam Charles
