Ronald Holliman, an 18-year-old African-American man, was with friends on a summer evening when his life was cut short in a burst of gunfire. He was a resident of Chicago's West Side, living on the 5200 block of West Race Avenue.
The afternoon of Wednesday, June 4, 2014, found Ronald and several other young men gathered on the front stoop of a home in the Austin neighborhood. Around 5 p.m., as they were hanging out in the 4900 block of West West End Avenue, three gunmen emerged from a nearby alley and began shooting at the group without warning. The sudden attack sent chaos through the street. When the shooting stopped, four people were hit.
Ronald was struck multiple times, with wounds to his left buttocks, left thigh, and right knee. He was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital but succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead at 6:28 p.m. Three other victims survived the assault. A 21-year-old man was shot in his arm, leg, abdomen, back, and flank.
A 26-year-old man was shot in the chest, back, abdomen, and flank and was taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition. A 17-year-old boy suffered a graze wound to his hip and declined medical treatment at the scene.
One of the wounded men told investigators that after being shot and falling to the ground, he saw one of the gunmen stand over him. He covered himself for protection and then heard a sound like a failing transmission. Looking up, he saw three men get out of a gray van and run away, leaving the vehicle behind. Chicago Police officers processing the crime scene recovered numerous shell casings, determining that three different firearms were used in the attack: two 9 mm pistols and a .45-caliber pistol.
The investigation soon led to persons of interest. Just four days after the shooting, on June 8, 2014, police stopped a car on the 4800 block of West Madison Street and found Reginald Jackson and two other men inside with two 9 mm handguns. Ballistics testing later confirmed that these were two of the weapons used in the murder of Ronald Holliman. One of the surviving victims saw a photo of Jackson on Facebook shortly after the incident and identified him to police as one of the shooters. Another victim later corroborated this identification in 2016.
Despite the identifications and the recovery of the murder weapons, nearly three years passed before charges were brought. In March 2017, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office charged Reginald Jackson, then 27, with one count of first-degree murder for Ronald's death and three counts of attempted murder for the other victims. A judge, questioning the long delay in the filing of charges, set his bail at $600,000.
Later that same month, a second suspect, Dennis Weathers, then 25, was also charged with murder and attempted murder in the 2014 attack. Prosecutors stated that two of the surviving victims had identified Weathers as one of the gunmen. At the time of the new charges, Weathers was already being held in Cook County Jail on unrelated gun charges from 2015. He was subsequently denied bail for his alleged role in Ronald's murder. The case against both men is proceeding through the Cook County court system.
