An illegal immigrant from Venezuela with a criminal history was arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old college freshman in Chicago last week.
As reported on Monday’s AM Update, Sheridan Gorman of Yorktown Heights, New York, was walking with friends near Loyola Beach around 1am Thursday when a masked gunman approached the group and fired a single shot that struck her in the back. Gorman, a first year business student at Loyola University Chicago, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Her family released a statement calling her the “heart of the family,” sharing that Gorman was “walking with a group of friends near her dorm in an area that was understood to be safe” to “catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights” when she was murdered.
“What happened to Sheridan cannot be reduced to the idea of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is not an abstraction,” they wrote, in part. “This is the loss of a daughter. The loss of a sister. The loss of a future filled with milestones that will now never come. Our family is forever changed.”
The family urged anyone with information to come forward.
The Suspect
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identified the suspect as 25-year-old Jose Medina-Medina. In a statement, DHS said Medina-Medina was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol on May 9, 2023, and released into the country under the Biden administration. He was released again on June 19 of the same year after being arrested for shoplifting in Chicago. He later failed to appear in court. That lead to an arrest warrant, but he was never re-arrested.
“Sheridan Gorman was failed by open-border policies and sanctuary politicians who released this illegal alien twice before he carried out this heinous murder,” DHS spokesperson Lauren Bis said in the statement.
According to DHS, Medina-Medina shot and killed Gorman early Thursday while she was walking in a park with friends. He allegedly approached her while wearing a mask and armed with a gun. As she attempted to flee, he fired his gun and shot her.
CWB Chicago reported that police arrested the man Friday night while executing a search warrant at an apartment just blocks away from the beach. Investigators reportedly recovered a firearm inside the residence that is now undergoing ballistics testing to determine whether it was used in the shooting.
Surveillance footage tracked Medina from the crime scene to the nearby building and law enforcement identified him in part due to what they describe as a distinct limp, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The Charges
On Sunday, the Chicago Police Department formally charged Medina-Media with murder in the shooting. In a statement, the department said Medina-Medina faces six felony charges, including a count of first-degree murder. Authorities have not confirmed a motive, and the investigation remains ongoing.
DHS said Sunday that it had lodged an arrest detainer asking Chicago officials not to release the man, describing him as “a Venezuelan criminal illegal alien.”
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