At first it seemed like just another senseless shooting in an already violent summer. A little after 4 AM on Monday, August 18, 2008, two men were fired on as they sat in a Mercedes outside the Rock ‘n’ Roll McDonald’s. By the time police arrived four minutes later, the Mercedes was on its way to Stroger Hospital. The 29-year-old driver had been shot five times; the passenger, his younger brother, was declared dead on arrival at Stroger. From the little information police were able to piece together at the time, the slaying seemed to have stemmed from an altercation at Excalibur, the popular nightclub a couple blocks away.
The survivor of the River North shooting had the attention of authorities even before he left the hospital. His name was Dana Bostic, and he was the older brother of Curtis Ellis, who’d been fatally shot in the seat next to him. Not long after Bostic was hospitalized, Mahogany Barbee, his longtime girlfriend, rushed in to see him. The couple lived together with their children in suburban Aurora, not far from where she worked as a nurse’s assistant. To her and the couple’s friends and family, Bostic was loyal and generous, known for lending money when anyone was short and organizing block parties or boat outings for special occasions.
As police tried to find out more about the Rock ‘n’ Roll McDonald’s shooting, Bostic received another visitor in the hospital: Maurice Davis, a fellow member of the New Breeds who’d grown up with Bostic and his brother. Davis was a tough character. Nicknamed Capone, he was 6’4″ and weighed 235 pounds. He was 22 at the time and had been selling drugs since he was 14, typically while high, since he smoked marijuana and used ecstasy every day. He’d been incarcerated for heroin possession and domestic battery, and had a girlfriend who was just 16. He was also a loyal soldier who was known to carry a gun.
The New Breeds had been at the center of conflicts over shifting gang alliances and drug territory for years. The gang was formed in the 1980s when members of the Black Gangsters broke away from their leadership. But the splinter group soon became the more prominent, and within a decade the New Breeds swallowed up the BGs.
In 2010 federal authorities charged Dana Bostic and two dozen of his associates with running a sophisticated heroin ring on Chicago’s west side. Below are several key court documents (PDFs) detailing the case: a two-part criminal complaint and transcripts of Bostic’s two-day sentencing hearing in August 2012.
Criminal complaint, part one
Criminal complaint, part two
Sentencing hearing, day one
Sentencing hearing, day two
In 2000, Bostic, then 20, was arrested near the corner of Pulaski and Gladys after police said they saw him selling a small baggie of crack. Bostic contested the charge, saying he was simply hanging out with a lifelong friend named Eleazar Alves. A county judge found Bostic guilty, but let him off with a year of probation.
The witness later recanted during the trial. Still, a Cook County judge found Bostic guilty of first-degree murder—but not for long. Bostic’s attorney filed a motion asking the judge to reconsider in light of the shifting witness accounts, and the conviction was reversed.
A note on Sourcing
This story was constructed from hundreds of pages of federal and state court records, police reports, and interviews with federal and local law enforcement officials, as well as attorneys for some of the defendants. Attorneys for Dana Bostic did not respond to multiple requests for comment or an interview with their client.
The Players
(in order of appearance)
