Daveon Montgomery and two friends had a few drinks at The Point, 1565 North Milwaukee, and left as the bar closed at 5 a.m. last Sunday. They settled into a nearby car, but allegedly Montgomery got out about five minutes later.
He returned to the bar’s entrance, then crossed the street and fired 11 shots into the venue from across the street, prosecutors said Saturday.
There were about eight people still inside the bar at the time, and one of the bullets struck a 29-year-old man on the right side of his face, breaking his orbital bone, Assistant State’s Attorney Dragana Bender said. The projectile remains lodged behind the victim’s eye. He’s scheduled for surgery on Wednesday.
Bender said “essentially the whole incident is on video” from the time Montgomery and his friends arrived in the area, including the shooting itself. She did not suggest a motive for the shooting.
Montgomery turned himself in at the Grand Central (25th) District police station on Thursday after he learned that he was a suspect in the case. He has no criminal background.
An assistant public defender argued that the gunman wore a dark face mask, making identification difficult. Montgomery plays basketball on his college team, she said, and the fact that he turned himself in suggests that he would not flee the area if the judge released him on bail.
But Judge Barbara Dawkins decided he should remain in custody. She granted a state petition to hold Montgomery without bail.
Last weekend’s shooting was the second in four months at the bar. Last October, four gunmen engaged in a shootout directly in front of the venue, leaving four bystanders injured and one of the offenders dead, according to prosecutors.
On Tuesday, CPD Supt. David Brown ordered the immediate, temporary closure of The Point under a city ordinance designed to keep a business deemed a “public safety threat” closed until the owner takes “reasonable steps” to protect its employees, patrons, and members of the public from future harm.
The bar’s owner, Jun Lin, blamed Chicago police for October’s shooting, saying they did not respond quickly to 911 calls for help with dispersing the crowd outside his business.
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