CHICAGO — Officials say a Chicago man fatally shot his friend in the head and then picked up the fallen man’s marijuana cigarette from the ground and walked away.
Quntin Buchanan, 25, is charged with two counts of murder and another count of robbery for stealing the victim’s blunt, according to court records. Judge Maryam Ahmad ordered him into custody after she heard about the allegations during Buchanan’s detention hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.
Jeremiah Pruckler, 20, and two childhood friends got together to hang out and smoke pot in a rear vestibule of the Dearborn Homes, 2900 South State, last Tuesday evening, prosecutors said.
Surveillance footage allegedly showed Buchanan arriving a few minutes later, wearing a face mask and a hoodie with the word “Quality” printed on the back. Witnesses told police Buchanan sat on a nearby staircase for a few minutes.
He eventually walked up behind Pruckler and shot him once in the back of the head, prosecutors told the judge.
Pruckler’s friends ran for safety.
But Buchanan, prosecutors said in a written proffer, “bent over the victim’s body and picked up the victim’s blunt that was near victim’s body.”
Buchanan fled to his mother’s house and knocked on the door, telling a relative that he had killed someone, prosecutors said. Rather than let him into the house, Buchanan’s mother called 911.
Chicago police found Buchanan near the 95th Street Red Line station about three hours after the shooting. He ran away, taking off his sweatshirt as he sprinted from the cops, officials said. When officers found him a couple of blocks away, he was only wearing boxer shorts.
“Defendant shot his friend and stole his blunt,” Ahmad wrote in the detention order. “His mother refused to let him in her apartment and called the police on him.”
Officials said two men standing with Pruckler when he was killed were childhood friends of Buchanan. They both identified him as the killer, according to prosecutors. They said Buchanan’s mother, sister, and cousin identified him in CHA security video frames.
