Nearly one year after a mass shooting at her album release party in River North in which four people were killed and 14 others wounded, Chicago drill rapper Mello Buckzz was ordered held in Cook County Jail last week following her arrest for alleged possession of a stolen Glock handgun.
The 25-year-old rapper, born Melanie Doyle, was taken into custody by Chicago police officers just before 10 p.m. on June 15 in the 1900 block of South Rockwell Street, according to Police Department and Cook County court records. Prosecutors charged her with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, resisting arrest, driving with an obstructed windshield and transporting open alcohol.
Officers curbed a Mercedes-Benz sedan after they saw its front windshield was tinted, Doyle’s arrest report states. When officers asked for her driver’s license, they allegedly saw a small amount of marijuana in her purse and an open bottle of vodka on the floor near the front passenger seat.
The officers told her to get out of the car, but Doyle allegedly refused and a sergeant from CPD’s Ogden District (10th) was called to the scene. After about 15 minutes and several more orders to get out, the responding officers were able to open the door and pull her from the vehicle, according to Doyle’s arrest report.
Doyle continued resisting as the officers removed her from the car, and one of them “observed the barrel of a firearm protruding from under the driver’s seat,” her arrest report states. The recovered gun was previously reported stolen in southwest suburban Bedford Park.
Court records show a judge ordered Doyle held in jail during her first court appearance last week. Another hearing was scheduled for Monday.
Doyle’s arrest and detention were announced last Friday on her Instagram page, which is followed by nearly 500,000 people.
“I really wish I was coming to send this message from home, but I’m not,” Doyle said in an audio message, apparently made during a phone call from Cook County Jail. “Things didn’t go that way. Y’all know I’ve been trying my hardest to rebrand myself and my image. Stumbled across a couple blocks, but it’s nothing to a big dog. Thank y’all in advance for all the support and everything and keeping me in y’all prayers. They can’t hold a real (expletive) down for too long. Stay prayed up, I love y’all.”
“Don’t believe everything y’all see on the Internet, don’t believe the hype,” she added.
Earlier this month, Doyle’s father, Melvin Doyle, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of being a felon in possession of a weapon. He faces up to about six months in prison when he’s sentenced in September, records show.
According to his plea agreement with prosecutors, Doyle sold a Glock pistol to an undercover informant on May 20, 2025 — part of a series of transactions on Chicago’s South Side that led to his arrest on July 7, 2025, a few days after the shooting at his daughter’s party.
No connection between the two investigations was alleged, though police said in the wake of the mass shooting that there were concerns about gang retaliation. Melvin Doyle has multiple felony convictions in his background, including a 1998 attempted murder conviction for which he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, records show.
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The July 2, 2025, drive-by attack at the rapper’s party in the 300 block of West Chicago Avenue left four people dead and another 14 wounded — one of the most severe single shootings in Chicago in recent memory. Police and court records show no arrests or charges have been filed in connection with the shooting.
City leaders were quick to note the gunfire was the byproduct of an ongoing South Side gang feud. “Obviously, there’s a motive there,” CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling said of the shooting last summer.
However, as the summer season rolls on, large gatherings of all stripes pose challenges to the city’s Police Department, especially in neighborhoods where violence is already more common. Citywide gun violence has ticked up so far in 2026 after several consecutive years of declines, according to city crime data.
Late Friday, on Juneteenth, at least 12 people were shot while gathered in the 200 block of West 95th Street, officials previously said.
Detectives are investigating the circumstances leading up to that mass shooting, and no one was in custody Monday. Answering questions from reporters Saturday at an unrelated protest in Federal Plaza, Mayor Brandon Johnson called the shooting “heartbreaking.”
baiduhai’s Jason Meisner contributed.