CHICAGO — Police have announced charges against a second man in connection with the murders of two students outside Innovations High School in the Loop one year ago. James Allison, 20, was returned to Chicago from Crown Point, Indiana, to face charges in the case.
The announcement of charges against Allison came just days after prosecutors charged another man, Tommie Coleman, with participating in the murders. Officials have said a third gunman who was involved in the murders died in June.
Childhood friends Monterio Williams, 17, and Robert Boston, 16, were killed as they walked out of the school onto the first block of North Wabash around 12:30 p.m. on January 26, 2024. As they approached the nearby CTA station, three gunmen jumped out of a stolen Infiniti SUV and fired shots for about 15 seconds, prosecutors said during Coleman’s detention hearing last week.
A bullet narrowly missed a 25-year-old woman who happened to be walking by, piercing her coat sleeve and falling into its lining.
Video from the school allegedly showed Allison changing clothes and leaving campus about 90 minutes before the shooting, prosecutors said. Video and GPS data from his phone allegedly showed he boarded a CTA train to Roosevelt and then walked to a nearby parking garage, where video shows he got into the stolen Infiniti.
Police received a tip within hours that the now-deceased individual participated in the shooting. A search warrant served on that individual’s Instagram account revealed a video that prosecutors suggest was recorded inside the stolen SUV about 18 minutes after the murders.
In the video, the deceased gunman “sang the verse of a song making references to being masked and armed with others in a stolen car and getting out and shooting at opposition,” prosecutors alleged. Detectives allegedly obtained another video that Coleman recorded in the SUV’s front seat while the now-dead gunman was recording his video in the back seat. Coleman’s video also showed all three suspects had guns, prosecutors said Saturday.
Prosecutors said location data from all three suspects’ phones showed their devices tracked together before, during, and after the murders.
Allison is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, unlawful possession of a weapon, and aggravated discharge of a firearm toward an occupied vehicle.
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