Gakirah Barnes

Gakirah Barnes
An image of Gakirah Barnes. She is holding a revolver in her hand while wearing a red hoodie with a striped interior. She is looking slightly away from the camera.
Barnes in an undated photograph
Born(1997-01-21)January 21, 1997
DiedApril 11, 2014(2014-04-11) (aged 17)[1]
South Eberhart Avenue, Woodlawn, Chicago
Cause of deathShooting
Other namesK.I., KI, Kirah, Snoop
Years active2011-2014
OrganizationGangster Disciples gang

Gakirah Barnes, also known as KI[a] (died April 11, 2014), was an American gangster and member of the Gangster Disciples gang in Chicago, Illinois who allegedly killed 20 people between 2011 and 2014.

Barnes was shot and killed in the Woodlawn area on April 11, 2014, after posting her location on the social media platform Twitter.

Early life and education

Barnes grew up in the Woodlawn area on Chicago's South Side, an area known for violence.[2] Barnes' father was shot and killed before her first birthday,[3] and two of her close friends were also killed during her childhood.[2] She finished middle school at Perspectives/IIT Math & Science Academy and returned for a freshman year of high school, before being arrested for a firearm discharge and put in a youth detention center.[4] Barnes was introduced to the Gangster Disciples street gang by a group of boys when she was 14, and she would join the "St. Lawrence Boys" faction.[2][5]

Gang activity

From age 14 to 17, Barnes was a prominent partaker in gang activity on Chicago's South Side with the "St. Lawrence Boys" faction of the Gangster Disciples street gang.[6][2] She allegedly shot and killed 20 people between 2011 and 2014,[2] including rival Black Disciples gang member Odee Perry, whom "O Block" was informally named after.[2][7]

Death

Twitter communication and shooting

A 2016 study produced by Columbia University found that Barnes utilized the social media platform X (at the time called Twitter) often, posting over 27,000 tweets from 2011 until April 2014.[8] On April 11, 2014, Barnes tweeted a photo of herself and her friends on the porch of a home in the Woodlawn neighborhood. At around 3:30 pm CDT,[9] hours after tweeting the photo, Barnes was shot on South Eberhart Avenue in the Woodlawn neighborhood, blocks away from the location where she had taken the tweeted photo and three blocks from where she had lived.[10][11] She was pronounced dead at a hospital by the Cook County Medical Examiner at 5:43 pm CDT,[9][11] due to bullets wounds in her jaw, chest and neck areas.[12] British magazine Nature noted that the tweet Barnes had posted of her location may have been a contributing factor in her death.[12]

Rapper and fellow Black Disciples gang member Dayvon "King Von" Bennett was named as a suspect in police documents, although a lack of evidence led police to not charge Bennett for the killing.[3][13][14][15] On April 11, 2019, a TV series on Barnes' life and killing premeired on A&E, titled Secret Life of a Gang Girl: The Untold Story.[16]

Barnes' death led to the eventual murder of rapper FBG Duck in 2020.[17]

See also

Notes, citations and sources

Notes

  1. ^ "KI" is also sometimes stylized as "K.I."

Citations

  1. ^ "Gakirah "K.I." Barnes, age 17". National Gun Violence Memorial. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Patton et al. 2016, p. 3
  3. ^ a b Kennedy, William (2022-06-27). "King Von's Disturbing Connection To A 17-Year-Old Girl's Murder". Grunge. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  4. ^ Chicago Sun-Times (2014-06-09). Gakirah Barnes: The 17-year old assassin. Retrieved 2025-07-12 – via YouTube.
  5. ^ Patton, Desmond Upton; MacBeth, Jamie; Schoenebeck, Sarita; Shear, Katherine; McKeown, Kathleen (April 2018). "Accommodating Grief on Twitter: An Analysis of Expressions of Grief Among Gang Involved Youth on Twitter Using Qualitative Analysis and Natural Language Processing". doi:10.1177/1178222618763155. PMID 29636619. Retrieved July 12, 2025.
  6. ^ "'She called herself a hitta' — a 17-year-old female assassin operated on the South Side". Chicago Sun-Times. 2015-07-24. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  7. ^ "Trial set for 6 reputed members of Chicago's O-Block gang charged in brazen Gold Coast slaying of rapper FBG Duck". Chicago Tribune. 2023-10-08. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  8. ^ "When Words on Twitter Trigger Real-World Violence". Columbia University. 2017-06-21. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  9. ^ a b Florez, Emily; Fisher, Alexandria (2014-04-12). "Mother of Teen Girl Fatally Shot: "It's An Ongoing War"". NBC Chicago. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  10. ^ Patton et al. 2016, p. 4
  11. ^ a b Patton, Desmond (2017-05-04). "The Haunting Social Media Trail Left by a Teen Gang Member". VICE. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  12. ^ a b McCullom, Rod (2018-09-04). "A murdered teen, two million tweets and an experiment to fight gun violence". Nature. 561 (7721): 20–22. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-06169-8.
  13. ^ "King Von Named in 2014 Fatal Shooting of Gakirah Barnes". The Source. 2021-07-13. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  14. ^ Staff, Media Take Out (2021-07-13). "Police Name King Von As 17-Yr-Old Gakirah 'K.I.' Barnes' Killer". MTO News. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  15. ^ staff (2021-07-13). "King Von Allegedly Identified By Police As 17-Year-Old Gakirah Barnes' Killer". HOT 97. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  16. ^ Swartz, Tracy (2019-03-27). "New TV show to explore 'secret life' of Chicago teen known for threatening rivals online". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved 2025-07-12.
  17. ^ "FBG Duck's Gold Coast killing followed yearslong gang war involving girl gang assassin, other rapper, feds say". Chicago Sun-Times. 2023-08-07. Retrieved 2025-07-12.

Sources

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