Outside the Monaco Hookah Lounge on Trinity Avenue, the night was supposed to end like any other: music, drinks, Atlanta’s usual Friday energy. Instead, it became the moment the hip-hop world lost one of its most electrifying voices.
Dayvon Daquan Bennett, better known as King Von, was 26. In just two years he had exploded from Chicago’s O-Block streets to national stages, his storytelling vivid, his flow ruthless, his debut album Welcome to O’Block released exactly one week earlier. That night he was celebrating with friends and fellow OTF members when a verbal dispute between two groups escalated into gunfire in seconds.
Body-cam and surveillance footage later released by Atlanta PD paint a chaotic picture:
Two rival crews – one tied to Quando Rondo (QC), the other to Lil Durk’s OTF – clashed in the parking lot.
Words turned to fists. Von, never one to back down, was seen throwing punches at Rondo.
Timothy “Lul Tim” Leeks, Rondo’s associate and bodyguard, drew a legally carried Glock and opened fire.
Von was struck multiple times: three shots to the torso, two to the head.
Off-duty Atlanta officers working security returned fire, wounding Leeks and another man
Within 90 seconds, the scene was carnage. Bystanders screamed and scattered as muzzle flashes lit the darkness. Von collapsed on the pavement, blood pooling beneath him. Paramedics loaded him into an ambulance by 3:27 a.m., sirens racing toward Grady Memorial Hospital. At 3:29 a.m., he was pronounced dead.
Witness accounts describe pure panic. “Everybody was running, ducking behind cars,” one clubgoer told WSB-TV. “I saw Von on the ground… he wasn’t moving.” Another bystander filmed the aftermath on Instagram Live, capturing the raw grief as friends screamed his name.
Leeks was arrested at the scene and charged with felony murder. In March 2023, after two years of legal battles, a Fulton County judge acquitted him on self-defense grounds, citing video evidence that Von initiated the physical altercation. The verdict divided fans: some called it justice, others an injustice that let Von’s killer walk free.
The shooting was the culmination of years of Chicago-Atlanta tension between OTF and QC, fueled by diss tracks and social media taunts. Von’s death triggered immediate retaliation: within weeks, multiple shootings in Chicago were linked to the feud, claiming over a dozen lives in the following year.
Lil Durk, Von’s mentor and OTF leader, posted a heartbroken tribute: “My twin gone… I feel empty.” The hip-hop community mourned en masse. Drake, Meek Mill, Chance the Rapper, and countless others paid respects. Von’s posthumous album What It Means to Be King debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 in 2022.
Five years later, the pain lingers. Every November 6, murals in Chicago are repainted, candles lit, and O-Block remembers its storyteller. The Monaco Hookah Lounge has since closed, but the parking lot remains a quiet memorial: flowers, jerseys, and photos left by fans who still can’t believe he’s gone.
King Von’s final moments were chaotic, violent, and senseless – everything he rapped about, yet never deserved. At 26, his story ended in gunfire, but his voice still echoes in every drill beat and every O-Block corner.
Rest in peace, Dayvon “King Von” Bennett. Long live the King.
