Kenneth Williams, a 23-year-old man who was on pretrial release for a gun case, has been accused of shooting an 8-year-old girl during a confrontation on the Near South Side last month. Prosecutors have revealed disturbing new details about the incident, leading to Williams being ordered detained.
The shooting took place around 9:45 p.m. on June 24 in the 3000 block of South State Street. Chicago police were able to gather video evidence, shell casings, and multiple eyewitness identifications linking Williams to the shooting.
According to a prosecution detention petition, the young girl was shot in the leg while riding in the cargo area of a vehicle that was returning from a beach outing. The group had stopped at a gas station on South Michigan Avenue to stretch and use the restroom when a woman in a white Chevrolet accused them of hitting her daughter with a car. She returned with a man who threatened the group, leading to a tense confrontation.
The victims tried to evade the white Chevrolet by making multiple turns, but the car continued to follow them. When they finally stopped near 30th and State to confront the woman, bystanders tried to coax them out of their vehicle. Cellphone footage captured Williams trying to convince the victims that nobody on the sidewalk was armed before pulling out a handgun and firing four rounds at the back of the vehicle as it drove away, hitting the 8-year-old girl in the leg.
Surveillance video from a nearby CPD camera captured Williams raising his arm and firing the shots, though the image quality was poor. Investigators recovered two 9mm shell casings at the scene and identified him through photo line-ups and police officer identifications. Judge Ankur Srivastava ordered Williams held in custody, stating, “This is about as dangerous as one can behave.”
Williams faces charges of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery by discharging a firearm, and aggravated assault by discharging a firearm. He was arrested at the Cook County jail, where he had been locked up on a gun charge since being found with a loaded pistol in his backpack at Northwestern Memorial Hospital on July 12. The gun in his possession at the time of his arrest is not the one used in the shooting of the young girl.
Court records show that Williams was also on pretrial release for an unrelated gun charge in another jurisdiction and had recently served a two-day sentence for a drug conviction just four days before the shooting.
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