CHICAGO (AP) - A man charged in the July killing of a University of Illinois student was one of five Chicago youths accused of murder after another teen was shot to death during an attempted car theft last year, authorities said Thursday.
Cook County prosecutors say 18-year-old Steven Davis fatally shot 21-year-old Be’Rasheet Mitchell on July 16. Mitchell was trying to defend his sister, who was Davis’ girlfriend, during a domestic incident when he was shot in the abdomen, authorities said. He died the next day at Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
Davis was arrested in Galesburg nearly two weeks later and charged with first-degree murder. He is being held without bond in Cook County Jail.
Mitchell was pursuing a master’s degree in architecture from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign at the time of his death.
“It shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have happened,” Mitchell’s father, Manuel Mitchell, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “Now, I just hope that he (Davis) gets what he deserves. Knowing his past record and this, it just seems like people seem to slip through the holes in some cases like this and I don’t want to see that happen.”
Davis was one of five Chicago teens charged with murder in Lake County in August 2019. Lake County prosecutors said at the time that six people traveled to the northern suburbs from Chicago to commit burglaries. The teens were trying to break into a car in Old Mill Creek when the vehicle’s owner came outside. The 75-year-old owner, who had a valid FOID card and concealed carry permit, fired his gun at two teens who approached him, authorities said. Jaquan Swopes, 14, was fatally shot.
Davis and four others were initially charged with murder. Those charges were later dropped and Davis and three others saw their cases transferred to juvenile court. Charges against an 18-year-old defendant were reduced to conspiracy to commit burglary and criminal trespass to a vehicle.
Davis’ attorney declined to comment on his past and current charges.
In a statement issued Thursday, the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office noted that the juvenile justice system can never predict how someone will respond to treatment and can never guarantee that person will not relapse into criminal activity.
“Many youth that enter our juvenile justice system successfully complete the requirements placed upon them and go on to become productive adults. That was our hope in this case,” the state’s attorney’s office said. “It is unfortunate this offender chose not to take advantage of the opportunity and, instead, allegedly chose to continue a destructive path.”
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