A Cook County judge on Tuesday sentenced the man who murdered on-duty Chicago Police Officer Andrés Vásquez Lasso to life in prison, but a law passed in 2023 will allow him to seek release after serving 40 years because he was under 21 when he committed the crime.
Judge John Lyke ordered Steven Montano, now 21, to serve life on three murder counts, a concurrent 45-year term on three additional murder counts, a concurrent 20-year term on two more murder counts, and a consecutive one-year sentence for unlawful possession of a weapon, according to court records. A jury convicted Montano on July 21.
Prosecutors said Montano was 18 when he fatally shot the 32-year-old officer on March 1, 2023, moments after fleeing a domestic disturbance call in the 5200 block of South Spaulding.
Montano allegedly argued with his 37-year-old girlfriend that afternoon, charged at her, and threatened to get a gun. The woman slipped out a side door and called 911, telling dispatchers Montano had a firearm before he grabbed her phone during the call, hung up, and threw it to the ground.
As responding officers approached the home, Montano jumped out a window and ran. He dropped a gun and ammunition magazine along the way but picked the weapon back up, loaded it, and asked neighbors if he could hide it in the garage where they were standing, prosecutors said. They refused. Montano ran through the garage and jumped a fence.
Vásquez Lasso and his partner arrived as a backup unit in full uniform and a marked squad car. Seeing Montano, Vásquez Lasso bailed out of the squad car and chased him into the playground of Sawyer Elementary School, repeatedly ordering him to stop.
Instead, Montano looked over his shoulder and turned while racking the slide on his pistol. He raised the weapon toward Vásquez Lasso and both men fired.
Montano squeezed off five shots, striking Vásquez Lasso in the head, arm, and leg. The officer fired twice, hitting Montano in the mouth.
Children playing in the schoolyard hid under playground equipment as the shots were fired.
Vásquez Lasso collapsed immediately. Montano stumbled to a nearby parking lot and fell with his gun beside him. Vásquez Lasso’s partner rushed from the squad car and confronted Montano, who stood up despite the gunshot wound to his face, refused commands, and tried to walk away. Officers tazed him and placed him in handcuffs.
Fellow officers loaded Vásquez Lasso into a squad car and then transferred him to an ambulance. He died at Mt. Sinai Hospital.
In 2023, Gov. JB Pritzker signed a law making anyone sentenced to life in prison for a murder committed when they were under 21 eligible for release after serving 40 years.
An effort by State Rep. Theresa Mah of Chicago to expand the 40-year resentencing opportunity retroactive for anyone serving life for murders committed before they turned 21 fell two votes short of passing the House earlier this year.
As CWB Chicago reported shortly after Montano’s arrest, he was one of three people arrested in July 2022 after Chicago police saw the group run from a car that had been used in a shooting. A CPD report documenting that arrest said he was a Latin King gang member.
The car’s driver was charged with multiple felonies, and a 15-year-old boy who ran from the vehicle was charged with shooting the 29-year-old victim.
But prosecutors in the Cook County state’s attorney’s office felony review unit rejected felony charges that Chicago cops wanted to file against Montano, including illegal gun possession and aggravated battery, according to CPD records. Instead, he faced only a misdemeanor resisting charge, which prosecutors dropped after he completed a community service program four months later.
After Montano’s arrest in the Vásquez Lasso murder, then-Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx defended her office’s charging decision.
“[Montano] was not charged with a felony because the evidence does not support a charge of gun possession for this offender,” Foxx said.
