Once the arrest becomes public, it will symbolize everything that’s wrong with the ‘system,’ and it cost a young student her life. The family’s statement is 💯 on point.”We have learned more about the Venezuelan migrant being questionedby Chicago police in connection with the murder of Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman, who was shot in an apparently random and unprovoked attack on the pier at Loyola Beach this week.

CWB Chicago reported Saturday evening that Chicago police detained a 25-year-old man around 9 p.m. Friday while executing a search warrant at an apartment building in the 6800 block of North Sheridan Road, less than two blocks from the pier in Rogers Park. The search turned up a firearm that was sent to a ballistics laboratory to determine whether it fired the bullet that struck Gorman, who was killed by a single shot to the torso, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday they had found no indication of any provocation or altercation leading up to the shooting. When Gorman and her friends crossed paths with the gunman near the pier’s light beacon at 1:11 a.m. Thursday, he was wearing a ski mask or other face covering. He fired once, striking Gorman in the torso, though CPD initially reported she had been shot in the head. Detectives used footage from multiple cameras to track the suspect to the apartment building, where additional footage captured him without the face covering, and someone associated with the building recognized him, sources said.

We are not naming the man because he has not been charged with any wrongdoing in connection with Gorman’s death.

Court records show he was arrested in mid-June 2023 for allegedly shoplifting merchandise worth $132 from the Macy’s at 111 North State Street in the Loop. Arrest records show he listed 1222 West Touhy Avenue in Rogers Park as his home address at the time — the address of Leone Beach Park, where the fieldhouse had been converted into a migrant shelter by City Hall. Leone Beach Park forms the north end of Loyola Beach.According to court records, he was released from custody “by rule of the court,” a cash bail-era procedure by which people charged with non-violent crimes were released on their own recognizance. He never showed up for court again, records show. After his first failure to appear in July 2023, Judge Peter Gonzalez granted a 30-day continuance. When a Macy’s representative appeared for that date and the man once again failed to appear, Gonzalez issued an arrest warrant requiring a $50 deposit to be released from jail. He was never caught.

Questions are also being raised about statements officials made after Gorman was murdered. 

Ald. Maria Hadden (50th) told her constituents Friday morning that “the investigation has so far led police to believe that there is no broader threat to neighbors or the Loyola community.” Loyola’s president said Thursday morning that “there is no ongoing threat to our campus community.” But both statements were made while the killer remained unidentified, at large, armed, and apparently willing to kill without motive or provocation.

Gorman’s family issued a statement Saturday morning pushing back on a Sun-Times headline that characterized her death as “WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME.”