COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — DNA evidence has linked a South Side man to the fatal June 2015 shooting that happened just blocks from Chicago Police headquarters in Bronzeville.
Leland Jones, 25, was arrested this week and charged with first-degree murder in the evening shootout that left one person dead and three others wounded.
According to prosecutors, Leland was the passenger in a black Nissan Maxima that stopped at the intersection of 35th Street and Prairie Avenue about at 8:15 p.m. June 23.
At the same time, a large group of people walked westward along 35th Street toward the intersection, Assistant State's Attorney Bryan Grissman said during a bond hearing Thursday.
Jones is accused of pointing a gun out the car's window and firing multiple shots toward the group.
According to police, three people were shot and wounded: a 20-year-old woman and two men, ages 18 and 20. A fourth victim, 52-year-old Christian Barlow, was shot twice in his back and later pronounced dead.
Authorities said Barlow was not the intended target of the shooting. He'd been walking eastbound on 35th Street, Grissman explained Thursday, and happened to reach the deadly intersection at the same time as Jones and the large group.
The Nissan Maxima crashed shortly after the shooting, prosecutors said, and its occupants ran away — leaving behind a red baseball cap among other items.
DNA collected from the cap linked Jones to the shooting, Grissman said. A witness recalled the shooter wearing a red hat.
Jones, of the 9200 block of South Wabash Avenue, is charged with first-degree murder. Cook County Judge Laura Sullivan on Thursday denied Jones bail.
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