BRIDGEPORT — A teen who fired a hail of bullets into an occupied car — blasting out a back window — has been hit with felony charges, authorities said.
Police said Michael Cortez, 19, opened fire at a vehicle parked in the 3200 block of South Lituanica Avenue — one block west of the Chicago Police Department's Ninth District headquarters — around 9:30 p.m. on Jan 2. At least two people were inside the car.
"The victims were seated in the the vehicle when the offender walked up to it…and fired six to seven rounds, shattering the back window, and then he fled,” said Officer Veejay Zala, a Chicago Police spokesman.
No injuries were reported.
The motive for the shooting is not clear, police said.
Cortez, of the 800 block of West 33rd Street, was arrested Jan. 7, police said. He was charged with two counts of felony discharge of a firearm into an occupied vehicle, authorities said.
The shooting shook residents in the tightly-knit neighborhood. It took place just days after another nearby shooting at 32nd Place and Throop Street in which gunfire left a bullet hole in a cop’s wife’s minivan and shattered a home’s storm door.
No arrests have been made it that case, but newly-installed Cmdr. Joseph Gorman said investigators are reviewing footage from residential security cameras.
The footage, Gorman said, has “given us something we can sink our teeth into.”
