Chicago Man Sentenced to 6 Years for 2012 Tinley Park Shooting

A Chicago man and convicted felon surrendered his right to a trial and was sentenced to six years in the Illinois Department of Corrections after he pled guilty to unlawful discharge of a firearm.

Jesus Reyes, 22, was arrested for a shooting incident at a Tinley Park convenience store the evening of  Sept. 11, 2012.

Prosecutors said Wednesday morning that Reyes and six other men got into a confrontation outside the Always Open convenience store near 183rd Street and Oak Park Avenue. The men were rival gang members who worked together a nearby warehouse in the 18800 block of Oak Park Avenue.

They were on a work break and went to the store to buy beer. There was an altercation outside the store and shots were fired from a car.

Reyes and the others went back to work and a co-worker reported to their supervisor that shots were fired, who called police. Another witness near the scene had also reported the shooting, Southtown Star reported.

No one was injured in the shooting.

After police were contacted, the men fled in two cars but were apprehended later that evening. Police found a .25-caliber handgun in one of the cars as well as shell casings near the shooting scene, Patch reported.

According to Tinley Park police, the shooting stemmed from a gang dispute between the warehouse co-workers, who belonged to rival factions of the Latin Kings and Satan’s Disciples, Patch said in its report.

All seven men were interrogated by police, but only Reyes was arrested and charged. In addition to the weapons charge, Reyes was charged with unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon.

Reyes, wearing a tan jail uniform, told Cook County Judge Colleen Hyland that he was willingly giving up his right to a trial in exchange for the sentence. He is also required to serve two years of mandatory supervised probation when he is paroled.

There was some wrangling over credit for time served in Cook County Jail, where he is being held in lieu of $200,000 bail.

His attorney corrected the 290 days to 625 days of time served.

“I forget a year,” the attorney said.

The attorney also asked that Reyes be held in the county jail until June 6, before he is relinquished to the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections.