CHICAGO — Twice in recent weeks, prosecutors have asked judges to detain drivers accused of firing guns during traffic altercations in Chicago. Both times, the judges rejected the requests and sent the accused drivers home on ankle monitors.
In one case, police responded to calls of shots fired and met with a 36-year-old man who said another driver opened fire on his car in the 9400 block of South Ashland.
Prosecutors said in a detention petition that the victim cut in front of Kevin Reynoso, 23, due to an upcoming lane closure around 9:50 a.m. on January 24. The man returned to his lane, but Reynoso pulled alongside him and fired five shots at his car, the petition said. Investigators allegedly found five bullet marks on the victim’s Ford Fusion.
Prosecutors said the man recorded part of the incident on his phone, and the footage included the gunman’s license plate. Cops searched the plate’s registration, learned that it belonged to Reynoso, and they went to his home in Harvey, the petition said.
Officers allegedly saw Reynoso driving the gunman’s car at that location and stopped him for an interview. Prosecutors said the cops found a gun in Reynoso’s car.
They charged him with aggravated discharge of a firearm toward an occupied vehicle and asked Judge Ankur Srivastava to keep Reynoso in jail. The judge sent him home on the sheriff’s electronic monitoring program instead.
Then, one week later, around 11:35 a.m. on January 31, two drivers crashed in the 1500 block of South Racine.
The drivers got out of their cars, and one of them, identified as 50-year-old Maurice Jones, punched the other in the face and kicked him in the back, according to a CPD report.
Jones proceeded to pull out a gun and fired it into the ground next to where the other driver and his passenger were standing, prosecutors claimed.
Chicago police officers who spoke with Jones said in a report that he admitted to firing the gun and “related there were two of them and that they didn’t speak English and had no insurance.”
Jones is licensed to own firearms but does not have a concealed carry license, according to the state’s detention petition.
Judge Antara Rivera ultimately rejected that petition. She sent Jones home on a GPS ankle monitor.
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