CHICAGO — Prosecutors say a Chicago man opened fire on a woman’s car during a road rage confrontation, striking a passenger in her vehicle in the head. A total of five people, including the woman’s child, were in the car at the time of the shooting.
The woman was running late as she drove her son to school on January 18. As she hurried along, she cut off another car in the 400 block of East 95th, and the other driver rolled down his window to yell at her, prosecutors said this week.
He then pulled a gun from his center console and began shooting at the passenger side of the woman’s car. A 35-year-old man seated in the car’s back seat was struck in the head. He survived, but Judge Ankur Srivastava noted in court documents that he suffered “significant injuries” and was “nearly killed.”
Investigators arrested 37-year-old William Cooksey last week after three people who were in the victim’s car identified him in photo line-ups, according to prosecutors. The officers said he ran away and hid in a garbage can when they tried to detain him. They also said they found a loaded handgun inside a hoodie he discarded before being caught.
Prosecutors charged him with five counts of attempted murder, aggravated battery by discharging a firearm, and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon.
Srivastava detained Cooksey to await trial.
