Judge Raymond Myles of Cook County, 66, was gunned down outside his home on Chicago’s South Side.
Judge Raymond Myles of Cook County, 66, was gunned down outside his home on Chicago’s South Side shortly before 5 in the morning on Monday, April 10th. A 52-year-old woman who was with him was also shot in the leg and is currently being hospitalized in serious condition. The judge was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
A neighbor said he believes Myles and his companion were on their way to a health club when the shooting occurred. “I heard maybe six shots. The shots woke me up, and the screaming of the woman woke me up. She was screaming, ‘Don’t kill him, don’t kill him!'” the neighbor says. The judge had installed cameras at his home, and they could have recorded the gunman. Police said the shooting may have been connected with an attempted robbery.
“Lately there’s been a lot of crime in the neighborhood, with break-ins, people checking doorknobs to see if they can come in on you,” the judge’s neighbor Allison Rogers said. Robbery is plausible, but there were no signs that any property was stolen from the judge’s home.
Investigators hope the witness account of the woman who was shot will help them track down the shooter. “Superintendent Johnson has been fully briefed on the incident and has ordered the department to use every resource to track down the offender and bring them to justice,” Melissa Staples, chief of detectives, stated in an interview.
Staples also says that preliminary information indicates that Myles’ companion was shot first. Then, “Upon hearing the commotion and the gunshot, Judge Myles exited his residence,” she says. He “exchanged words with the offender” before he was gunned down. At this point, officers are not sure if the shooting was connected with Myles’ job.
Myles was previously attacked in 2015 after a traffic accident in Chicago. The other driver began punching Myles after the judge took out a cellphone and began recording the damage caused in the collision. Myles’ left the scene with a broken nose, and he had to have facial reconstructive surgery. The suspect was arrested ten months after the incident and he was released pending trial.
Myles had also been involved in several high profile cases in his courtroom in Chicago, including trying the cases of two people accused in the 1993 Brown’s Chicken murders that took the lives of seven people, and a man charged in the slayings of three relatives of singer Jennifer Hudson.
The FBI is offering a $25,000 for information leading to the arrest of the shooter who gunned down the judge. Myles’ family has asked for their privacy to grieve their loss.
Police confirmed that they are reviewing a “multitude of leads”. “You have our word that we will not let the judge’s life go in vain. We will hold this killer accountable,” Chicago Police Department 1st Deputy Superintendent Kevin Navarro promised. “Our detectives will be working around the clock to apprehend the offender in this tragic incident.”
Sources:
Police: Fatal shooting of Cook County judge may have been attempted robbery
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