A minor incident between a pedestrian and a driver that most people might have shrugged off as part of life in the big city instead turned into murder near a downtown nightclub, prosecutors said this week as a judge detained the accused gunman, saying he had “demonstrated an utter lack of value for human life.”
Rashawn Ward, 31, is charged with first-degree murder in the September 18, 2021, shooting death of Royal Shorts, 33, of Hammond. Prosecutors said the two men apparently did not know each other before they crossed paths by chance in the 800 block of North Orleans Street.
It was about 3:48 a.m. when Shorts was crossing Orleans diagonally and an SUV nearly struck him. Shorts sped up to get out of the vehicle’s way and tapped the rear passenger side of the SUV with his hand as he continued walking away. The SUV stopped.
Ward, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, opened the door and stepped into the street, prosecutors said in a detention filing. Shorts stopped, walked back toward Ward, and punched him, setting off a brief physical confrontation. That’s when Ward allegedly pulled a gun and fired, striking Shorts multiple times.
Ward climbed back into the SUV, and the vehicle sped away, prosecutors said. Shorts died a short time later. Investigators found no weapon near him, and video showed his hands were empty during the confrontation, according to prosecutors.
The murder might have gone unsolved without a security guard who provided CPD with the SUV’s license plate number. The plate led detectives to Ward’s brother, who acknowledged during an interview that he had been driving the vehicle that night. But he would not tell investigators who had been riding in the passenger seat, prosecutors said.
Detectives then began reconstructing the SUV’s movements through a patchwork of public and private surveillance video. That trail led investigators to a Walgreens at Division Street and Dearborn Street, where Ward and his brother had spent an extended period hanging around outside before the shooting, the detention filing said. Ward went inside the store several times, and surveillance allegedly showed him wearing a green baseball cap and purchasing an Aquafina water bottle and another item using a bank card tied to his account.
Additional footage showed Ward getting into the front passenger seat of the SUV about two minutes before the murder as his brother got behind the wheel and drove away, prosecutors said.
Six police officers reviewed the Walgreens surveillance footage and identified Ward, prosecutors said. Investigators also noted that the passenger in the SUV during the shooting was wearing the same green baseball cap Ward had been wearing at Walgreens.
CPD found the SUV about a week after the shooting. A search warrant executed on the vehicle turned up a fired cartridge casing that was forensically matched to the three casings recovered at the murder scene, as well as an Aquafina bottle, prosecutors said.
Ward, whose CPD arrest report lists his occupation as “security,” is on probation for a 2025 felony theft conviction, according to prosecutors. He also has Cook County felony convictions for being a felon in possession of a weapon in 2022 and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon in 2016. He is also on probation in four theft cases in Will County and a 2025 fraud case in Lake County, Indiana, prosecutors said.
Judge James Costello ordered Ward detained while the murder case proceeds, saying he had “demonstrated an utter lack of value for human life.”
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