COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A few hours after North Grand High School sophomore Jonathan Calvillo was asked to leave school for threatening to fight another student, he returned, spotted a rival gang member named "Speedy" and took aim, prosecutors said.
But when Calvillo, 16, fired the gun, he didn't hit his rival, who was on the other side of the street near the intersection of West Wabansia and North Karlov avenues, prosecutors said.
Instead, the bullet struck a teenage girl.
The girl "was walking to the bus stop after school wearing her headphones when she heard the gun shot," Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Bridget O'Brien said Friday. "[She] felt pain in her arm and looked at her arm and saw the gunshot wound."
Recovering at home on Friday, the girl said the next thing she remembers after being shot was people rushing over and surrounding her.
"Right now, it's kind of like a blur," she said.
Police were patrolling in the Hermosa neighborhood in expectation that the Spanish Cobras street gang might be seeking revenge for an alleged May 15 murder by the Maniac Latin Disciples.
Officers spotted a gunman, later identified as Calvillo, wearing a black t-shirt with white designs, and witnessed him shoot the teenage girl in the arm, according to court records.
Calvillo, of the 1800 block of North Kedvale Avenue, was found hiding in a yard a block away from his home, court records show.
Police say they later found the gun, a semi-automatic with a brown handle grip, wrapped in Calvillo's khakis in the yard next door.
After his arrest, Calvillo — also known as "Smurf" — allegedly admitted to being a member of the Cobras. He told police he gave himself the tattoo on his wrist — "DK," for "Disciple Killer" — after one of his friends was killed by a Disciple street gang member on May 15.
O'Brien said Calvillo also admitted to firing the gun at "Speedy" in retaliation.
As for the teenage girl Calvillo allegedly shot, she was treated and released from the hospital, according to court records.
Doctors at the hospital told her that the bullet exited her arm without causing any permanent damage.
She said Friday she won't let the violence in her community distract her from her goals.
"I, like, don't pay attention to that stuff," she said. "I'm going to go to college for chemistry and pre-med. I want to be a nurse or a doctor."
Calvillo, who was on juvenile probation at the time of the shooting for unauthorized use of a weapon, was hit with new charges of aggravated discharged of a firearm. He was ordered held on $1 million bond Friday.
