A 16-year-old girl whose stepfather was shot multiple times outside the family’s Brookfield apartment building in September has been charged with first-degree attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm for her alleged role in the shooting.
The girl, who was handed over to Cook County juvenile authorities on Jan. 27, was not the shooter, said Deputy Police Chief Jeff Leh, who added that Brookfield police believe two other people were involved in the incident.
Also on Jan. 27, at a hearing at the Cook County Juvenile Center, a 16-year-old boy who had been charged with first-degree attempted murder, was found guilty and sentenced to remain held at the center until his 17th birthday, which will be in November, Leh said. Leh said he was not sure what charge the boy was found guilty of.
Brookfield police interviewed the shooting victim’s daughter at the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, where she had been ordered to testify in the case.
“It all came about as a result of the juvenile charged and his hearing at juvenile court,” Leh said. Statements made to prosecutors led them to notify Brookfield police that the girl might have played a role in the shooting.
Brookfield Police Chief Steven Stelter said the girl admitted a role in the shooting to police.
“It was a planned deal,” Stelter said.
Until Jan. 27, police had been stymied in their attempts to identify other people involved in the incident. But, Stelter said, they had interviewed the girl several times, and it was clear that things were not adding up.
“There were a lot of variations in the stories,” Stelter said. “Every time we talked to her, we got different information.”
Initially, the shooting appeared to have been a spontaneous act during a fight between the girl’s 40-year-old stepfather and the then 15-year-old boy, whom police described as the girl’s boyfriend.
Police said that on Sept. 8, just before 10 p.m., the victim was smoking a cigarette while standing outside the apartment building at 4501 Park Ave. when he saw three people approach the apartment building and peer into the windows.
The victim, who was standing across the street, reportedly confronted the trio, one of whom was his stepdaughter’s boyfriend. During the confrontation, one of the boyfriend’s companions pulled out a handgun and shot the victim several times.
The man staggered into the lobby of the apartment building, where he collapsed in a pool of blood. The victim, who survived the ordeal, was able to identify his stepdaughter’s boyfriend, who lived in Hodgkins, as one of the people involved.
Reached by the Landmark after he left the hospital, the victim declined to discuss the incident, as did his wife.
Police arrested the stepdaughter’s boyfriend that night and charged him with attempted murder. In the following days, acting on information from the suspect and the victim’s stepdaughter, police detained two brothers and questioned them. However, police said the two were not involved.
