Community leaders unite after killings of rapper G$ Lil Ronnie and his 5-year-old daughter
Many area community leaders including a Fort Worth council member, the Forest Hill mayor and various advocacy organizations came together to show their support after Fort Worth rapper G$ Lil Ronnie and his 5-year-old daughter were fatally shot at a car wash in Forest Hill.
Officers responded to Slappy’s Express Car Wash around 10:45 a.m. on Monday after two men wearing blue jeans and gray sweaters got out of a white four-door Kia, approached the victims’ car parked in a bay, and shot the father and child to death, Forest Hill police said.
A judge signed a capital murder warrant for one suspect, whose name has not been released. The second suspect has not been identified.
The City of Fort Worth stands with Forest Hill’s efforts to figure out “what exactly happened yesterday. This entire city of Fort Worth has been affected by the senseless gun violence of the two that lost a life ... beloved souls,” District 8 City Council member Chris Nettles said at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
“In Forest Hill we take gun violence very seriously, and if you can see, we have a lot of partners that are standing, not only with us, but we stand with them in order to curb what happened yesterday,” Forest Hill Mayor Stephanie Boardingham said.
Michael Bell, pastor of Greater St. Stephen First Church and organizer with the advocacy group Unity in the Community Coalition of Tarrant County, said that this “heinous” act of violence is an unconscionable tragedy that demands justice and urgent action.
“The murder of a 5-year-old is an act of cruelty beyond comprehension,” Bell said.
“Violence has no place in our community, which is already buckling under the weight of inequity and injustice, and we stand together to ensure that no more innocent lives, especially those of our children, are lost in such a hideous act,” he said.
Melinda Hamilton, representing Mothers of Murdered Angels, said that the organization will provide resources to help the grieving family.
Forest Hill had no homicides in 2024, according to the city’s police department, but has had five killings so far in 2025, including two double homicides.
“We were crime free completely last year, no murders in our city for one whole year, and then to have three different occasions back to back, we just have to all stand together,” Mayor Boardingham said.
Boardingham said with rising gun violence, “we’re going to put our foot down now because we can’t keep doing this; we can’t keep burying our children.”
Pastor Rodney McIntosh, representing Violence Intervention and Prevention (VIP) Fort Worth, spoke on behalf of the family of the victims. “The (child’s) mother wants everyone to know that she is heartbroken and she is grieving,” he said.
The family said Lil Ronnie’s real name is Ronnie Sibley. He also is known on social media as Ronnie Smith or Chuckie Smith.
Before the shooting the child’s mother had dropped her off with Sibley, McIntosh said. The father and his daughter had spent that weekend at the Great Wolf Lodge to celebrate her cousin’s birthday, he said.
“This is about a mother who is grieving the death of a 5-year-old child,” McIntosh said. “If we’re going to do anything as a community, let’s make sure that we come together to stand behind them.”
“We have to get to a place where we start to value our lives, but more than anything, that we start to value the future and the lives of our children,” he said.
Sibley, 30, also had a 12-year-old daughter in the seventh grade, McIntosh said. He added that Sibley had lost his brother in 2013 and lost his mom in 2023, both to gun violence.
“Not only did the (12-year-old) child lose her father, but the young lady has to deal with the fact that she’s lost her grandmother, she’s lost her uncle, and her sibling,” he said.