A man who allegedly threatened a neighbor with a handgun minutes before his friend was found dead of a gunshot wound in his apartment has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor weapons charge in exchange for a two-day sentence.
Early on March 24, 2020, 23-year-old Garrett Young called police to report that his friend, Samuel Wiener, had shot himself in Young’s apartment on the 1300 block of West Greenleaf.
Officers found Wiener, 24, unresponsive with a gunshot wound to his head and recovered a handgun nearby, according to a police report. Wiener was pronounced dead a short time later at St. Francis Hospital.
A 26-year-old woman who lived below the apartment told police she went upstairs around the time of Wiener’s death because she heard Young “arguing with another individual.” Young displayed a handgun and threatened to shoot the woman, according to Officer Ronald Westbrooks, a CPD spokesperson.
The woman told police about the incident when they arrived to investigate Wiener’s death.
The Cook County medical examiner’s office determined Wiener died of a gunshot wound to his head, but the office has been unable to determine if his death was suicide, homicide, or an accident, according to public records.
Wiener was an avid tennis player and coach who was working toward a business degree at Loyola University, according to an online obituary.
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