CHICAGO — A Venezuelan migrant charged with trying to murder another migrant this week told cops he did it because the victim murdered a friend of his last week, a Chicago police report says.
Henry Brito-Dominguez, 23, is charged with attempted first-degree murder and aggravated battery by discharging a firearm in connection with the shooting. Judge Shauna Boliker detained him on Friday afternoon to await trial.
Brito-Dominguez put forth a self-defense argument, but Boliker wasn’t buying it, saying he “took the law into his own hands.”
The shooting occurred shortly before 6 p.m. Tuesday in the 6100 block of South Martin Luther King Drive. CPD said a 24-year-old man was in critical condition with gunshot wounds to his back and neck.
Cops searching the area for a Chevy Traverse that may have been involved in the shooting found one at a gas station in the 6600 block of South Stony Island and pulled it over, according to a CPD report. Officers detained all of the occupants and subsequently found a handgun under the vehicle’s third seat, where it was accessible to Brito-Dominguez, the report said.
At the police station, Brito-Dominguez admitted that he shot the man because he had killed his friend last week, according to the report. Brito-Dominguez went on to say that he saw the person he shot with a firearm earlier in the day, the report stated.
CPD records show that the shooting victim was, in fact, charged with being in possession of a firearm when he was shot.
Judge Boliker, though, said Brito-Dominguez’s decision to leave the scene and change clothes made his self-defense claim “not reasonable.”
This is Brito’s second arrest since he arrived in Chicago. On April 23, cops said they found nearly 26 grams of pot in his pocket during a traffic stop across from the migrant shelter at 2641 South Calumet. Prosecutors dropped the misdemeanor charge at his first court date a month later.
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