(WTTW News)
While riding in a stolen vehicle, a teenager allegedly opened fire on another driver late last year at a stop light in Old Irving Park, killing the man.
Hader Garcia, 18, was arrested and charged this week with one count of first-degree murder stemming from the fatal Dec. 18 shooting of 36-year-old Richard Robinette. Garcia was denied bail during a hearing Friday afternoon.
According to Cook County prosecutors, Robinette was driving a white Kia westbound on West Irving Park Road at around 3 a.m., when he stopped at a red light at North Cicero Avenue.
While stopped, a black Acura MDX that had been reported stolen days earlier on Dec. 12, pulled up along the passenger side of Robinette’s vehicle. The driver of that car, who prosecutors said was Garcia, then allegedly fired six times into Robinette’s car, striking him multiple times before speeding from the scene.
Robinette drove a few feet before crashing into parked cars along the road. He was taken to Illinois Masonic Hospital, but later died.
According to prosecutors, Chicago police tracked the Acura to Skokie using surveillance video and license plate readers, eventually locating video there that showed Garcia exiting the driver’s side of the vehicle hours after the shooting while handling a firearm.
Investigators recovered the Acura Dec. 22, and a search inside led to the discovery of a 9mm cartridge casing, which was later tied to other casings found at the scene of the shooting, prosecutors said.
Garcia was arrested early last month while allegedly driving another vehicle that had been taken in a carjacking. Inside that car, police found three loaded firearms, including a distinctive olive-green Glock 9mm handgun with an extended magazine and a sticker on it that read “supreme,” according to prosecutors.
That gun was tested and found to have been the weapon used in Robinette’s killing, prosecutors said. Police searched Garcia’s phone and allegedly found photos and videos of him handling that firearm, while records from that phone also placed Garcia near the scene of the shooting at the time it occurred, according to prosecutors.
Garcia is due back in court March 10.
Contact Matt Masterson: @ByMattMasterson | [email protected] | (773) 509-5431
