Rickisha King-Tiggs

Rickisha King-Tiggs, a 25-year-old Black woman and recent college graduate, was the only daughter of her mother, Misty Tiggs, who called her “my everything.” On March 29, 2024, family and friends gathered at her gravesite to celebrate what would have been her 27th birthday. Rickisha’s life was violently cut short in her Chicago, Illinois, neighborhood of Chatham nearly two years earlier.

The fatal shooting was the culmination of a years-long conflict with a neighbor, Eugene Arnold III. According to Rickisha’s mother, she and her daughter moved to the same apartment complex as Arnold in 2017, and the run-ins began a year later. Over the next five years, Misty Tiggs said she made numerous police reports about Arnold’s behavior, which she described as including verbal attacks and harassment. The situation escalated dramatically on October 4, 2022. After Tiggs let a door close on Arnold, he allegedly made offensive comments. When she responded by throwing a rock at him, Arnold struck her in the head with a liquor bottle and punched her multiple times. Tiggs filed another police report after the assault.

On the evening of October 26, 2022, just before 5 p.m., Rickisha was walking her mother to her car for work on the 800 block of East 82nd Street. When Misty Tiggs saw Arnold, she called the police. As she was on the phone with authorities, Arnold approached them and began shooting with a handgun. Rickisha was struck in the head and leg. She was rushed to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

Eugene Arnold III, who was 45 at the time, was arrested and charged with the murder of Rickisha King-Tiggs and the attempted murder of her mother. During a court hearing, prosecutors detailed the history of the feud between Arnold and Rickisha's mother. A judge ordered Arnold to be held without bail.

Rickisha’s mother has expressed profound grief and the ongoing pain of her loss. She attends court hearings every month, wearing a shirt with her daughter’s picture on it so that the accused and everyone in the courtroom can see the person whose life was taken. As of late 2024, murder proceedings against Eugene Arnold III remain pending in court.