The parents of slain teenager Sheridan Gorman criticized Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker for their remarks about her death, saying in a statement that they want to “ensure that what happened to her does not happen again.”
“We will not allow Sheridan’s name to be used in political arguments — but we will insist that her loss leads to real answers and real change,” the family said in a statement.
Gorman, 18, was fatally shot during the early-morning hours of March 19 while with her friends on the lakefront near Tobey Prinz Beach Park in Chicago’s Rogers Park community, prosecutors said. Charged in the killing is 25-year-old José Medina, who federal authorities said is a Venezuelan national who was in the U.S. without legal permission.
In two separate statements, the family responded to comments from Johnson and Pritzker. The first-term mayor said, “When something like this happens in a tragedy where a young person is gunned down, you automatically think about your own children. You just do. And there’s no words that one could express that could properly console the family that lost their baby.”
Pritzker said there were “real failures” in the nation’s immigration system that led to Gorman’s fatal shooting. The governor also added that while fixes need to be made, that responsibility lies with the Trump administration.
In a statement, the Gorman family said they are “not interested in political arguments or in watching responsibility shift from one place to another. If there were failures as the Governor himself has acknowledged — then every one of them must be identified, examined, and addressed directly. The location of those failures matters less than the willingness to confront them honestly.”
“Our daughter is not a policy debate,” the family said. “She is a life that was taken, and that demands accountability.”
The family noted Sheridan “was doing something entirely normal — walking near her campus with friends. She should be here.”
Pritzker’s office released a statement Thursday, reiterating his sympathy to the Gorman family.
“The family of Sheridan Gorman remains in Governor Pritzker’s thoughts as they grieve and navigate the unimaginable loss of their daughter,” the statement said. “He believes the person responsible for their daughter’s death needs to be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law and with the entire weight and urgency of our justice system that her family deserves.”
Gorman’s killing almost immediately became a political lightning rod. Homeland Security tweeted out Medina’s identity and blasted “Illinois sanctuary politicians” in a social media post noting that they lodged an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer. Conservative commentators began criticizing Chicago and Illinois policies that they said led to her death.During a public event at the White House on Thursday, President Donald Trump joined the family in criticizing City Hall and reiterating his desire to send the National Guard into Chicago.
The U.S. Supreme Court in December denied a request from the Trump administration to allow the Republican president to deploy National Guard troops to Illinois streets while a court battle over a restraining order plays out. He has deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., which is allowed because of the federal government’s significant jurisdiction over the district.
“It would be great if people like the mayor of Chicago and the governor of Illinois would say, ‘Please come in and stop the crime.’ A beautiful young lady was killed the other day. (Her) father was a very good friend of Dan Scavino,” Trump said, referring to a top adviser. “He took it very hard. Dan took it very hard. Lifelong friends, they grew up together. It’s a young lady whose life would be saved if we did what we did as an example in Washington, D.C., which is now a safe city.”
Pritzker released a statement Thursday afternoon again rejecting the president’s proposal to call in the National Guard.
“Pulling National Guard members from their families, jobs, and communities to make a political statement is wrong, and doing so while refusing to pay TSA workers is indefensible,” Pritzker said.
In their statement, Gorman’s family said the teenager’s death was not “random” or “inevitable” and “cannot be treated as though it were.”
“We appreciate the efforts of law enforcement in making an arrest. But safety is not defined by how quickly a case is solved after the fact. It is defined by whether a young woman like Sheridan is protected in the first place,” the family said. “Our daughter was not in the wrong place at the wrong time. The system failed her.”
The family called for “a clear and honest accounting of what went wrong.”
“We will not allow Sheridan’s life to be reduced to a talking point or a generalization. We expect leadership that is willing to confront hard truths and ensure that what happened to her does not happen again,” the family said. “We stand ready to engage with the Mayor and any public official willing to approach this with seriousness, transparency, and a commitment to real change.”
Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, faced an outpouring of criticism from social media users and conservative media for her initial response to the murder over a viral interview clip that showed her calling the shooting a “wrong-place, wrong-time” event.
“The kids were out doing normal things people do in the neighborhood, and it sounds like this might have been a wrong-place, wrong-time, running into a person who had a gun” she said in the clip pulled from a WFLD-Ch. 32 interview. “They might have startled this person at the end of the pier, unintentionally, but that’s all we know.”
The online pressure has resulted in an “overwhelming number of phone calls and emails,” hateful comments and negative reviews, all mostly from out-of-state individuals, Hadden told constituents in a Wednesday newsletter.
“The content of the phone messages and emails that my staff and I have been receiving is explicit and disturbing. The messages and calls include threats of violence against myself, my family, and my team, including racist, misogynistic, and homophobic language,” she wrote.
Several protesters, who she described as “anti-immigrant, anti-sanctuary city,” gathered outside her office Tuesday. The demonstration drew counterprotesters. Another demonstration is expected outside her office Friday.
The Rogers Park alderwoman decided to have staff work remotely Wednesday and Thursday and closed her office for Friday.
“My team and I are taking these precautions to ensure our safety and ability to maintain the level of service that you expect of us,” Hadden wrote in an Instagram post. “I am still working as usual and will be out and about in our ward this week.”
Hadden said she made her now-viral comment when asked if the fatal shooting was tied to a serial killer. She apologized for “any additional pain” the comment caused.“In an effort to make sense of a senseless situation, I said things that landed wrong with some people. My comments were never intended to blame the victim or to imply that Sheridan should not have been out enjoying the park or that it was her fault that she was shot,” she wrote in a statement. “The fact that some media outlets are intentionally creating sound bites to misconstrue my words during this tragedy is also unfortunate.”
Jake Sheridan contributed.
