Bodyguards, celebrities, tourists: Rapper Lil Durk's 'very L.A.' murder-for-hire trial

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Set us as preferred Kyiesha Moncrieffe wanted to experience the heart of Los Angeles.So the tourist visiting from England went to Erewhon, famous for its pricey smoothie once named for Hailey Bieber, a model and celebrity wife.She went to the Hollywood Walk of Fame, where cosplay characters strutted in the oppressive heat.

To Santa Monica beach, where tourists and residents alike sought to cool down in the ocean.Then, she headed to 1st Street for a look at the clash of justice and celebrity at the ongoing murder-for-hire trial of Chicago rapper Durk Banks — better known as Lil Durk.“I just wanted to come and get the facts of it,” said Moncrieffe, who has been following Banks’ music “since before he got famous.”It would be hard to find a more L.A.scene than the one playing out downtown in the normally staid Felicitas and Gonzalo Mendez United States Courthouse.That’s where Ye, the rapper formerly known as Kanye West, was warned by a court security officer to lose the dark glasses.

Where rapper MGK, best known as Machine Gun Kelly, set off a hand-held metal detector with his chain.Where line sitters were paid to try to secure Banks’ own family one of the most desirable seats in town.But for all the spectacle says about L.A., the issue at the trial’s heart is a somber one.It centers on the killing of 24-year-old Saviay’a Robinson who was stopped at a gas station near the bustling Beverly Center on a summer day in 2022.

Three shooters unloaded 18 rounds at the black Escalade in which Robinson rode with his cousin and the intended target — Tyquian Bowman, a rapper known as Quando Rondo.Both prosecutors and defense attorneys agree that the 2022 shooting that ended in Robinson’s death centered on revenge for the killing of Dayvon Bennett, a rising rapper known as King Von, two years earlier and 2,000 miles away.The twisted tale involves a cadre of rappers and hangers-on, shootings in separate ...