A South Holland man is charged with attempted murder for allegedly shooting his girlfriend in the face during an argument on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago’s Gold Coast. Judge Kelly McCarthy ordered Eric Betton, 36, held without bail on Sunday.
Around 2:30 a.m. on Friday, Chicago police responded to the 1300 block of North Lake Shore Drive in response to a suspicious person call. When they arrived, a 36-year-old woman approached them and asked for a ride to Federales, a bar located at 180 North Morgan Street in the West Loop, according to police records.
“Sorry. We’re on a job,” the officers told her, according to Betton’s arrest report. The cops parked their squad, and the woman walked over with a little more information.
She told them that she had been riding south on Lake Shore Drive in her friend’s car when her friend “was shot in the face by her baby daddy,” the report said.
The woman told officers the man initially slapped the victim, then pulled over in the 1300 block of North Lake Shore Drive, pulled a gun from under the driver’s seat, and shot the woman, officers reported.
She told police she bailed out of the Range Rover after the shot was fired. A 911 caller who saw the woman jump a fence reported her behavior as suspicious, prompting the police response.
Betton allegedly drove the injured woman to the Loop after the shooting, where they encountered police officers and requested assistance near Roosevelt Road and Michigan Avenue. Following that, he drove her to Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Officers stopped Betton as he dropped the injured woman off at the hospital, according to the CPD report. The woman who allegedly bailed out of the car identified Betton as the shooter, and cops found a handgun inside the Range Rover, the report said.
According to court records, Betton has a pending misdemeanor fleeing and eluding case in South Holland and an out-of-state fugitive warrant.
Prosecutors charged him with attempted first-degree murder; aggravated battery by discharging a firearm; aggravated unlawful use of a weapon; and aggravated domestic battery.
