A star witness testified against his former friends Friday, who are on trial for allegedly killing a Jacksonville rapper over a diss track.<\/p>\n
31-year-old Dominique Barner took the stand this afternoon against his former friends Hakeem Robinson, better known as Ksoo, and Leroy Whitaker Jr. Both are charged with 1st degree murder in the 2020 killing of Charles McCormick Jr., better known as Lil Buck.<\/p>\n
Barner identified Hakeem Robinson and Leroy Whitaker Jr. as the people who were allegedly with him on January 15th, 2020 \u2013 the day that Charles McCormick Jr was shot and killed. He named Robinson as the shooter.<\/p>\n
(Joel Copper \/ Asst. State Attorney): What was the intent for the three of you when you were going to that apartment complex?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): To kill McCormick. <\/p>\n
The suspects now could be facing life in prison for the murder. Whitaker is also charged with: <\/p>\n
\u00b7 Burglary with assault or battery<\/p>\n
\u00b7 Home invasion robbery<\/p>\n
Dominique Barner, also known as \u2018Butta,\u2019 was also arrested, but reached a plea deal with the state. He agreed to cooperate and testify against Robinson and Whitaker. <\/p>\n
On Friday, he told jurors that each suspect, including himself, wanted to kill McCormick over a song.<\/p>\n
State questioning Dominique Barner:<\/b><\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): Was killing Charles McMormick something that you wanted to happen?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Yes <\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney)\u2026is that something Leroy Whitaker wanted to happen? <\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Yes sir<\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): Abdul Robinson Jr?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Yes sir <\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): Hakeem Robinson? <\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Yes sir<\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): What was the reason that all of you wanted to kill Charles McCormick?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Because of the diss track he made.<\/p>\n
Barner told jurors that they had wanted to kill McCormick in December of 2019, but because McCormick was out of town, they waited until he got back. On January 15th, investigators say Robinson, Whitaker, and Barner followed McCormick from his house to the shopping plaza with the intent to kill him.<\/p>\n
State questioning Dominique Barner (cont.):<\/b><\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): So what happened when Charles McCormick came out?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Hakeem jumped out.<\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): Jumped out of what?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Jumped out of the car. <\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): What happened after Hakeem jumped out of the Nissan? <\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Shot at him.<\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): Shot at who?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): McCormick.<\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): Did McCormick stay there?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): No.<\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): What did he do?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): He ran. <\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): What did Hakeem Robinson do?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Chased him.<\/p>\n
(Joel Cooper \/ Asst. State Attorney): And then did what?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Killed him.<\/p>\n
Barner also noted that he did not see Hakeem kill McCormick, but that he saw Hakeem allegedly chase McCormick with a rifle. <\/p>\n
Barner was also arrested and charged for another murder. The plea deal for Barner applied for both cases. His deal means he could serve as little as 20 years in prison.<\/p>\n
This is something both defense attorneys didn\u2019t hesitate to bring up during cross examination. <\/p>\n
Whitaker\u2019s defense attorney cross examination: <\/b><\/p>\n
(Julie Schlax \/ Attorney for Leroy Whitaker Jr.): It hits different with 1st degree murder doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Yes ma\u2019am<\/p>\n
(Julie Schlax \/ Attorney for Leroy Whitaker Jr.): And you were fully aware of that difference weren\u2019t you?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Yes ma\u2019am<\/p>\n
(Julie Schlax \/ Attorney for Leroy Whitaker Jr.): So you knew that both of those murders, if you didn\u2019t come to some kind of deal, were going to go to 1st degree murder right?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Right.<\/p>\n
(Julie Schlax \/ Attorney for Leroy Whitaker Jr.): So in August 2020 you decided \u2018I\u2019m going to look out for me\u2019, right?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Correct.<\/p>\n
Robinson\u2019s defense attorney cross examination:<\/b><\/p>\n
(Tara Kawass \/ Attorney for Hakeem Robinson): \u201cIf you testify that it was not Hakeem Robinson that was the shooter, you don\u2019t get the deal. If you say it was someone else, you don\u2019t get a deal. Right?<\/p>\n
(Dominique Barner): Right.<\/p>\n
Testimony resumes on Monday. Action News Jax Madison Foglio will be inside the courtroom providing updates.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A star witness testified against his former friends Friday, who are on trial for allegedly killing a Jacksonville…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":93398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[12189,13030,5229,7948,58451,15621,61756,61752,61758,58448,3188,723,58442,61753,7310,61755,61757,425,30170,61754,11246,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,58447,58446],"class_list":{"0":"post-93397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action_news","9":"tag-action_news_jacks","10":"tag-america","11":"tag-arlington","12":"tag-barner","13":"tag-ben","14":"tag-charles_mccormick_jr","15":"tag-charles_mccormick_junior","16":"tag-dominic_barner","17":"tag-dominique_barner","18":"tag-fl","19":"tag-florida","20":"tag-hakeem_robinson","21":"tag-jack_sebastian_folks","22":"tag-jacksonville","23":"tag-leroy_whittaker_jr","24":"tag-lil_buck","25":"tag-local","26":"tag-madison_foglio","27":"tag-mattis","28":"tag-robinson","29":"tag-united-states","30":"tag-united-states-of-america","31":"tag-unitedstates","32":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-usa","35":"tag-whitaker","36":"tag-whittaker"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}