A murder case that has ignited debates over immigration and public safety in Chicago has widened, with federal prosecutors stepping in. The US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois charged 25-year-old Jose Medina with illegal firearm possession on Thursday, on top of existing state counts including first-degree murder in the shooting death of Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman, ABC7 reports. Police say Medina, an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela, approached Gorman, 18, and her friends at Tobey Prinz Beach in Rogers Park while dressed in black and masked, then opened fire, fatally striking her in the neck.
Investigators say surveillance video and witnesses who noted a distinctive limp led them to Medina's nearby apartment, where they recovered a gun whose shell casings matched those at the scene. Authorities say Medina entered the US illegally in 2023. The federal charge of possessing a firearm while being unlawfully present in the United States carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. "Given the senseless, cold-blooded nature of the murder of a young student with a bright future ahead of her, the Chicago US attorney's office will take no chances that this illegal alien perpetrator will be released back into our community," US Attorney Andrew S. Boutros said in a statement.
Medina's public defender says he suffered brain damage and disability after being shot during a robbery in Colombia and has the "mentality of a child." Medina, who missed a prior court date in a 2023 Chicago shoplifting case, is being held without bond and is currently hospitalized with tuberculosis. During a Friday hearing, officials said he asked to be deported to Columbia after he turned himself in at the border in Texas in 2023 and was detained for months, but was put on a bus to Chicago instead, ABC7 reports.
- "Blue cities historically are lighter in their prosecutions. We have already heard that this person was of diminished capacity, so we are probably going to see some defense in regard to that," local defense attorney Donna Rotunno tells Fox News. "My guess is the feds wanted to jump in so they can have some control over the fate of the defendant." She says federal authorities have "no faith" in the state's justice system.
"What happened to Sheridan was not a reflection of the Loyola community. It was the result of a failure outside of it," Gorman's parents said in a statement. "Sheridan was a real person—she had a future, a family, and a life full of promise," they said Friday. "We are grateful to see continued coordination among law enforcement, and we hope that every step taken brings us closer to answers, accountability, and a sense that this did not happen in vain."
- "As we move forward, our focus remains on Sheridan—who she was, what she meant to us, and what was taken from her," they said. "If there is any purpose to be found in this loss, it is that no other family should have to endure what we are living through now."
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