CHICAGO — A Venezuelan migrant faces murder charges after allegedly shooting a man in front of two witnesses as the victim pleaded for his life.
Judge Caroline Glennon-Goodman detained Kevin Perez-Paredes, saying he “for lack of a better word, executed” 25-year-old Crismer Nieves.
Prosecutor Shelley Keane told the judge that surveillance footage showed Nieves entering an Englewood gas station around 6:35 p.m. on September 10. She said Perez-Paredes, 24, and several other people soon arrived in a pair of SUVs.
The occupants of the vehicles, a Mercury Mountaineer and a Jeep, got out, mingled, and returned to the cars. Keane said one of them, not Perez-Parades, put on a ski mask in view of a surveillance camera.
Video showed Nieves walking out of the gas station with no weapons in his hands and walking between the two SUVs. Keane said he and Perez-Paredes greeted each other, slapped hands, and had an on-camera conversation.
But when Perez-Paredes cracked open his car door, Nieves took off running. The Jeep and the Mountaineer followed him out of camera range.
About two blocks from the station, according to Keane, two people were seated in a car in the 7100 block of South Yale when an SUV pulled in front of them. Perez-Paredes jumped out of the passenger seat with a gun.
Keane said, “The victim was on the ground with his hands up, unarmed, yelling, ‘No! No! No!'” when Perez-Paredes shot him multiple times in the head and arm.
Chicago police began looking for the two SUVs after getting their license plate numbers from the gas station video. When they found the Jeep, Perez-Paredes was driving, and the man who allegedly donned a ski mask at the gas station was in the passenger seat, said Keane.
Neither of the witnesses was able to identify Perez-Paredes in photo arrays, but they both described the gunman and his vehicle.
However, Keane said, Perez-Paredes admitted to being the shooter during an interview with police. Detectives allegedly found text messages on his phone in which he admitted to the shooting.
During Perez-Paredes’ detention hearing, Michael Roman, an assistant public defender, unsuccessfully argued for his release, claiming that the allegations “show animus towards one person and one person only, who is now deceased.”
He said Perez-Paredes graduated high school in Venezuela and has lived in Chicago Heights for four months.
This story is made possible by contributions to the Cook County Courtroom Transparency Fund.
