Former Orr High School basketball star Raekwon Drake sentenced to 14 years for murder

Onetime Chicago high school basketball star Raekwon Drake was sentenced Tuesday to 14 years in prison for the “execution-style” killing of a man who ran off with his French bulldog.

Drake had managed to avoid trouble despite growing up in a West Side neighborhood wracked by violence and crime. He led the Orr Academy High School basketball team to a pair of state championships, then became a standout on a junior college team and was set to finish his degree at Post University in Connecticut on a full-ride scholarship.

Instead, he spent nearly three years in the Cook County Jail facing first-degree murder charges in connection with the fatal shooting in 2021 in Pilsen. Drake claimed he acted in self defense, and a jury in October found him guilty of the lesser charge of second-degree murder.

Speaking Tuesday before Judge Laura Ayala-Gonzalez handed down his sentence, Drake stammered and sobbed. “I truly, truly apologize for that. I’m so sorry for that,” Drake said, taking a long pause.

“I just want to say ... I’ve never been trouble," he added. "I have been going on, playing basketball because that was the only way out for me.”

On July 10, 2021, three men began following Drake as he walked his bulldog. Drake ran to his apartment and left the dog outside as he bolted upstairs and grabbed a gun. Martin Palafox, a 26-year-old with a record of drug and gun arrests, and two other men had taken off with the dog — and Drake gave chase.

Palafox threw the bulldog to the ground, and Drake and his girlfriend began attacking the would-be dog-napper. Then, as Palafox lay on the ground with his hands raised, Drake killed him.

Drake "put the gun to the back of his head, looked around and he pulled the trigger,” Assistant State’s Attorney Jennifer Cooper said. “He executed that man as he lay in the street.”

After the initial shooting, the two men who were with Palafox fired back, striking Drake and his girlfriend. Drake was struck in the lung.

Judge Ayala-Gonzalez highlighted video footage that she said showed a deeply disturbing moment in an otherwise commendable life, noting that Drake had overcome a difficult childhood and seemed poised for a bright future.

“You had ability and all of your dreams in one hand, and you yourself shattered all those dreams on your own,” she said.

“I understand things happen so fast, and there are times that you are in such a rage that you leave all common sense and you leave all reason behind. Two wrongs do not make a right. Whether or not you know that yet, you will have time to think about that.”

Drake could spend as little as four years in prison, after deducting the time he already served in jail awaiting trial and factoring in potential credit for good behavior that could cut his total sentence in half.

Had he been convicted of first-degree murder, he would have faced a minimum of 45 years in prison.