Every day, at least a dozen people are charged with illegally possessing guns in Chicago. A couple of people who were charged on Saturday stood out to our intrepid bond court report.
Both cases sounded routine, at least at first.
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Police stopped Carlial Bray, 28, for speeding on Thursday. Prosecutors said he pulled over, got out, and ran away, leaving two female passengers in the car and a loaded handgun on the driver-side floorboard where he had been sitting. Cops caught Bray nearby.
Bray has three felony convictions and has a pending case in which he’s facing charges of Class X armed violence and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
What’s so unusual about this case?
Well, according to Bray’s private defense attorney, he works for READI Chicago, which bills itself as “an innovative response to gun violence in Chicago.” The attorney said Bray is raising four children.
Judge Charles beach set Bray’s bail at $40,000 with electronic monitoring in the new case. But Beach also ordered him held without bail for violating the terms of bond in his pending gun case until Bray can see the judge who’s handling that matter this week.
“A grand total of a day”
Aniyah Barber, 21, had a very good day in court on Thursday. Prosecutors agreed to drop a felony gun charge she was facing and allowed her to plead guilty to a misdemeanor gun violation instead. She received two years probation.
She didn’t last two days.
On Friday, police investigating a call of shots fired stopped a car near the 7200 block of South Winchester. The man who was driving got out. In the passenger seat, Barber leaned forward toward her purse, which was on the floorboard, prosecutors said.
When police asked Barber if she was hiding anything in her purse, she allegedly responded, “It’s not mine.”
Cops found a loaded 9-millimeter handgun under the purse, according to prosecutors. She is now charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon again.
“It has been a grand total of a day between her plea and this particular charge,” Judge Charles Beach said before setting bail at $25,000 on the new case. He set bail at $100,000 on a violation of probation motion filed by prosecutors.