A convicted felon who allegedly pulled out a gun and racked its slide during a fight on the Grand Red Line station platform last week — then spit in a cop’s face — will need to post just $700 to go home on electronic monitoring, a Cook County judge ruled.
Meanwhile, a man charged with firing a gun outside the same CTA station last summer recently received a six-year sentence.
Last Thursday, February 3, police received a call of a person with a gun and men fighting on the station’s northbound platform around 11:05 p.m.
As cops responded to the scene, other officers pulled up a live feed from the station’s surveillance cameras and saw a group of men fighting and saw one man wearing a ski mask pull a gun from his coat, rack the slide, and place it the weapon in his waistband, prosecutors said. The camera operators radioed a description of the man to officers in the field.
Police crossed paths with Lorenzo Garry, 29, on the station’s staircase and stopped him because he allegedly matched the description of the man who had the gun. Prosecutors said they found a stolen, loaded 9-millimeter handgun in his waistband.
While officers were driving Garry to the police station, he told one officer that he would spit in one officer’s face. And, in fact, when the cops took Garry out of the car at the station, he spat directly in that officer’s face and chest, prosecutors said.
Police said they found baggies of marijuana and a black digital scale in Garry’s possession, too.
Prosecutors charged Garry, who is on probation for two burglaries, with unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, aggravated battery of a peace officer, and manufacture-delivery of cannabis.
Assistant Public Defender Suzin Farber said Garry is homeless, but he spoke out in court to say he has a place to stay.
Judge Barbara Dawkins set his bail at $7,000 with electronic monitoring, meaning Garry must pay $700 to get out of jail. After hearing that, Garry offered to pay an even higher deposit if the judge would remove electronic monitoring, but she did not change her order.
Dawkins also ordered Garry held without bail temporarily until he appears before the judge handling his burglary cases.
Guilty plea
Kyle Fortner, accused of firing a gun into the air outside the Grand Red Line station on a summer afternoon last year, has been sentenced to six years.
Police responded to calls of shots fired on the first block of East Grand on August 10 and met with several witnesses, including a security guard who provided a photograph of the man who fired the gun, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Fortner, 31, was carrying 38 bags of crack, more than two ounces of pot, $2,357 cash, and a handgun when police arrested him moments after the shooting. They also said he admitted to shooting the gun into the air.
His defense attorney said Fortner told police that “people were coming at him,” and he shot the gun to scare them away.
He had an active arrest warrant for failing to appear on a misdemeanor battery case for almost two years at the time of his arrest.
“Mr. Fortner stood on a busy street corner right in the middle of River North and fired a weapon into the air,” Judge Charles Beach said to summarize the state’s allegations, noting that the incident happened at “just about rush hour in that area.”
Fortner has entered a deal with prosecutors that gave him a six-year sentence in exchange for pleading guilty to aggravated unlawful use of a weapon with a previous conviction. Prosecutors dropped Class X armed violence, felon in possession of a firearm, and narcotics charges in the deal. Judge Michael Hood sentenced Fortner, who is scheduled to be paroled in August 2024 after serving three years.
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