Man convicted of attempted murder in Joliet shooting
May 3
JOLIET – Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow announced that a jury has found a Chicago man guilty of attempted first-degree murder for shooting a Joliet man who was standing in his driveway four times in 2008.
Arturo Romero, 20, also was found guilty of aggravated battery with a firearm and aggravated discharge of a firearm. He faces a minimum of 26 years in prison for the attempted murder when he is sentenced by Associate Judge Edward Burmila on July 27.
Romero, who goes by the street name “Insane,” and several others had an altercation with the victim’s two sons outside their Joliet house on the evening of Oct. 12, 2008. Someone fired a BB gun from the car in which Romero was riding, and one of the victim’s sons threw a rock that struck someone inside the vehicle.
Shortly before midnight, Romero was driven back to the house after retrieving a .45-caliber semiautomatic handgun from a friend’s house. He wore a black hoodie as he approached the victim and opened fire, striking him in the elbow and in the ankle.
Romero fired again as the victim attempted to crawl away, striking him in the thigh and grazing his chest. He then fired two more rounds at the house when he heard one of the victim’s sons shout from the garage, “Hey, that’s my dad.”
After the shooting, the defendant ran back around the block to the waiting car and jumped in laughing saying, “I got him. I got him. Let’s go.”
The victim survived and identified Romero from a photo lineup nearly two weeks later. Police retrieved the weapon after questioning Romero’s friends, who testified against the defendant. Ballistics testing on the casings retrieved from the crime scene showed they matched that weapon.
“Arturo Romero crept up in the night and fired several rounds at an innocent man and continued to advance on the wounded victim as he tried to crawl to safety in his own driveway,” said State’s Attorney Glasgow. “These are the actions of a vicious street thug whose callous disregard for human life warrants a lengthy prison sentence.”
The State’s Attorney thanked prosecutors Chris Koch and Jessica Colon-Sayre for securing an important conviction. He also credited the Joliet Police Department for its first-rate investigation.Two other defendants, David Hensley, 20, and Roberto Flores, 19, both of Joliet, are facing charges in the case.