ROGERS PARK – The 26-year-old man charged in the fatal shooting of Loyola freshman Sheridan Gorman was formally ordered detained on Friday, as prosecutors offered new details about the crime and a public defender provided new details of the Venezuelan migrant’s troubled past.
Prosecutors charged Jose Medina Sunday with first-degree murder, attempted murder and three counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, according to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office. Medina shot and killed Gorman, 18, after hiding behind a lighthouse at Tony Prinz Beach in the early morning hours of March 19, prosecutors said.
On Friday, Medina was ordered detained by Circuit Judge D’Anthony Thedford, who called Medina “a person that hides themselves in order to randomly commit horrible offense[s] and then decides to go back home.”
Medina had been hospitalized since soon after his arrest. He appeared via Zoom from Cook County Jail’s Cermak Hospital for Friday’s pretrial detention hearing. Medina contracted tuberculosis in 2023 while in a Chicago migrant shelter, a condition that postponed his hearing from Monday to Friday, according to public defender Julie Koehler.
Gorman’s killing has drawn international attention and intense political debate. The Department of Homeland Security meanwhile issued an arrest detainer against Medina that requests local law enforcement not release from custody a person who may be deported.
“This person came in through the open door policy of [former President] Joe Biden and we have others,” President Donald Trump said earlier this week.
Koehler requested Friday that Medina remain in custody in Cook County out of fear that the Trump administration would mishandle his case and “deport him to a third country,” she said. Koehler acknowledged that her request was an “unusual” one to make as public defenders typically argue for their client’s release, but she said she was going so “for his own safety.”
The crime unfolded about 1:30 a.m. on March 19, as Gorman was with a group of four friends on the pier at Tobey Prinz Beach in Loyola Park, a few blocks north of Loyola’s campus, Assistant State’s Attorney Mike Pekara said in court Friday. Gorman, 18, alerted her friends that someone was hiding near the pier before the group was chased by the person, who was later identified as Medina, Pekara said.
Medina opened fire and shot Gorman in her back as she tried to run away, Pekara said. She was pronounced dead at the scene.
Gorman’s friends were able to duck for cover in the grassy area near the pier as Medina ran back to an apartment in the 6800 block of North Sheridan Road, where he had left earlier, Pekara said. Gorman’s friends observed Medina dressed mostly in black, including a black face mask.
Police were able to identify Medina through security camera footage that traced his movements between his building and the pier, along with footage that showed him unmasked in the lobby of his apartment building, according to Pekara.
Gorman’s friends, an acquaintance of Medina and his mother each identified Medina through his distinct limp. Medina had previously been shot in the knee and wore a knee brace, prosecutors said.
Police obtained a search warrant last Saturday for Medina’s apartment and apprehended him there. A 40-caliber handgun that matched a 40-caliber cartridge at the scene was recovered from the apartment, according to prosecutors.
In court, Koehler detailed Medina’s past, noting he was born in a small town in Venezuela and was “developmentally delayed” and only attended school until he was seven years old. He moved to Colombia as a teenager, where his mother had relocated after she was raped and threatened by a government official in Venezuela.
Medina, who “takes eight different medications,” was severely disabled after being shot in the head by a group of men who stole his motorcycle at gunpoint, she said. Medina had to relearn how to walk and speak, suffers from epilepsy and has the brain capacity “of a child,” Koehler said.
“A large divot was taken out of his frontal lobe,” she added.
Medina attempted to cross the United States-Mexico border in 2023, where he was arrested by immigration authorities who held him for months before denying his request to be deported back to Colombia.
“He was placed on a bus and sent to Chicago two years ago,” Koehler said. “At that time, he had no family in Chicago and was placed in a migrant shelter where he contracted tuberculosis.”
Medina’s mother followed him to Chicago and also lived in the apartment on North Sheridan Road.
Koehler said Medina had Medina had “no criminal record of violence” before the shooting. He did have an active warrant for his arrest for twice failing to appear for a retail theft charge in 2023.
Gorman, a freshman in Loyola’s business school from New York state, was involved in campus religious groups and devoted herself to charity, friends and family said at a vigil after the shooting. They said she always had a smile on her face.
“She was always the first person who would hug me at a group, and she was always the last person, too,” said Kim Johnson, a faculty member who assisted Gorman in Bible study and the Christian organization Cru.
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