9 Chicago men accused of buying guns from U.S. soldiers in Kentucky
Soldiers in Kentucky sold one of the guns used in a 2021 mass mass shooting in the 2500 block of West 79th Street, federal prosecutors say.
Sun-Times file
A newly unsealed indictment says U.S. Army soldiers based in Kentucky conspired to funnel guns to members of a faction of the Gangster Disciples in Chicago. The guns were linked to a mass shooting and other violence in Chicago, federal authorities say.
Chicago native Brandon Miller, a soldier at Fort Campbell in Kentucky, conspired with soldiers Jarius Brunson and Demarcus Adams to buy guns in Kentucky and Tennessee and supply Miller’s associates in Chicago, according to the indictment unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Nashville.
Authorities say Miller instructed Brunson and Adams to buy guns and give them to him to sell to his Chicago contacts. They bought at least 90 guns, officials said. The soldiers’ involvement in the alleged conspiracy was made public in charges filed last year.
Miller’s alleged gang associates, named for the first time when the indictment was unsealed Wednesday, include Blaise Smith, Raheem Johnson, Bryant Larkin, Corey Curtis, Elijah Tillman, Terrell Mitchell, Lazarus Greenwood, Dwight Lowry and Dreshion Parks. They’re all members of the Pocket Town faction of the Gangster Disciples, the indictment said. The faction operates near 75th Street and South Chicago Avenue.
Miller exchanged text messages with Lowry, Greenwood and his other Chicago associates to negotiate the prices for the guns. The conspiracy lasted from December 2020 to April 2021, according to the indictment. “The silver one a 380 u still want it it’s a steal,” Miller is accused of writing to Lowry on Dec. 10, 2020, with Lowry responding, “Yup can’t beat it.”
One of the guns the soldiers sold in Chicago was used in a mass shooting on March 26, 2021, at a party in the 2500 block of West 79th Street that left one man dead and seven wounded, authorities said. Another was used in the killing of Gregory Jackson III on Jan. 28, 2021, at a barbershop in the 1900 block of South State Street, court records show. Jackson was an associate of the popular rapper G Herbo.