‘Rogers Park Man’ or Illegal Immigrant? Media Mislead on Suspect’s Identity in Chicago Student Shooting

Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks. This week, we look at the media’s reporting on the slaying of a Loyola University Chicago freshman by an illegal immigrant, and we cover more media misses.

Media Fail to Report on Immigration Status of Loyola Murder Suspect

Police arrested a 25-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela last week in connection with the fatal shooting of Loyola University Chicago student Sheridan Gorman — but the suspect’s immigration status was curiously missing from several headlines about the case.

Jose Medina-Medina is accused of approaching Gorman and her group of friends as they walked on the Chicago lakefront around 1 a.m. on Thursday morning before he opened fire, fatally shooting Gorman in the head. Gorman, who is from New York, was pronounced dead at the scene. Authorities have not revealed a potential motive in the crime.

Several news outlets, to their credit, were upfront about Medina-Medina’s status as an illegal immigrant. “Suspect in Chicago Student’s Killing Was in U.S. Illegally, D.H.S. Says,” reported the New York Times. “Venezuelan migrant charged in murder of Loyola student to appear in court,” read a headline from the local Fox affiliate.

And yet not only did the Chicago Tribune fail to get Medina-Medina’s immigration status in its headline, his immigration status is missing from the article about his arrest entirely, more than 24 hours after it was revealed by the Department of Homeland Security.

“Chicago police arrest Rogers Park man in Loyola slaying,” the outlet reported.

“The Tribune is not naming him because he has not been charged,” the report explains.

However, a follow-up story makes it clear that Medina-Medina was in the U.S. illegally, “ICE lodges arrest detainer against suspect in Loyola student’s shooting death.” Yet that story still does not name Medina, in apparent accordance with Tribune policy.

CBS News, for its part, reports, “Suspect due in court in Chicago shooting that killed Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman.” Readers have to wait until the tenth paragraph to find out Medina is an illegal immigrant.

Meanwhile, nonprofit news org Block Club Chicago reported, “Man Charged In Killing Of Loyola Student At Rogers Park Lakefront, Police Say.” The outlet reveals in the third paragraph that Medina is a Venezuelan national.

A headline from ABC 7 New York reads, “Police charge man with murder in fatal shooting of Loyola student from Westchester.” NBC Chicago reported, “Suspect charged with first-degree murder in Loyola University student’s killing.”

To exclude Medina-Medina’s immigration status from headlines is to miss a major part of the story. Medina-Medina had not only been apprehended and released into the country in May 2023 under the Biden administration, but had also previously been arrested for shoplifting in Chicago in June 2023. He reportedly failed to show up for court in that case, leading authorities to issue a warrant for his arrest.

“Sheridan Gorman had her whole life ahead of her before this cold-blooded killer decided to end her life. She was failed by open border policies and sanctuary politicians who RELEASED this illegal alien TWICE before he went on to commit this heinous murder,” DHS acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis said in a statement.

Now, Medina-Medina is facing six felony charges in connection with Gorman’s murder: one count of first-degree murder, one count of first-degree attempted murder, three counts of aggravated assault involving the discharge of a firearm, and one count of aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement has lodged an arrest detainer and has urged Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago leaders not to release Medina-Medina. He will appear before a judge on Monday who will determine whether or not he will be released on bond.

Despite the brazen nature of the crime, Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden suggested Gorman and her friends may have been in the “wrong place at the wrong time” and may have even just “startled the person at the end of the pier.”

“The kids were out doing normal things people do in the neighborhood,” she told the local Fox affiliate. “They may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, running into a person who had a gun.”

“They might have unintentionally startled this person at the end of the pier,” she added. “We don’t believe there is cause for broader community concern,” she assured.

Headline Fail of the Week

Variety is receiving flak for its coverage of the death of movie star and martial artist Chuck Norris. “Chuck Norris Was a Great Action Star — but Politics May Overshadow His Legacy,” reads a headline from the outlet.

“In nearly every Norris movie, he’s muscling into a foreign land or othered community, kicking a bunch of a**, completing his mission and hitting the road — or neutralizing the new threat that came into his town,” the opinion column says. “An all-American loner has to gun down outsiders who threaten his way of life, or go to another country to make sure justice is done.”

“His roles were part of a body of work used to show American strength, might and the pernicious attraction of taking the law into one’s own hands — something that seems less fun in a year in which our country is funneling money into bombing Iran and ICE agents are acting like one-man militias.”

It is easier to see Norris’s characters as justification for “fringe conspiracy” rather than a good-cop moral standing, the column argues.

Media Misses

• Hollywood Reporter senior editor Steven Zeitchik claims the Oscars “didn’t care” enough about the Iranian war or the United States’ ongoing immigration raids. “Turn on the show oblivious to current events, and you’d never have guessed the U.S. just launched a war whose heat ratchets up by the day,” he wrote.”The problem is that saying nothing also helps their cause — makes you seem irrelevant by your timidity. Talking about the beauty of cinema and the collaboration of co-stars while wars rage at home and abroad has the effect of making you look out of touch,” Zeitchik wrote.
• A new New York Times magazine article reveals just how highly Don Lemon thinks of himself. He told the magazine that his therapist recently told him “You are black history.” Lemon “wept, he said, but he did not disagree,” the outlet reports. Not to be outdone by the therapist, Lemon’s friend, comedian D. L. Hughley, compared himself and Lemon “on a much lower scale” to James Baldwin, William F. Buckley, and Rosa Parks. Lemon also recently told a crowd of his fans, whom he apparently calls his “Lemon Heads,” that “I am the news.”