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Another American family is mourning a child killed by someone who should never have been in this country. Chicago police arrested Jose Medina, a 25-year-old Venezuelan illegal immigrant, for the ambush murder of 18-year-old college student Sheridan Gorman—and it was his own distinctive limp that ultimately led to his capture.
The details are as heartbreaking as they are infuriating. Gorman, a freshman at Loyola Chicago who had just moved from New York to start her college journey, was shot near Tobey Prinz Beach in what police sources describe as an apparent ambush. The suspect wore a mask, but surveillance footage from building cameras, as detailed in the arrest report, caught him in his apartment lobby minutes later without it. A building engineer recognized Medina immediately—not by his face, but by what the arrest report calls his “very distinct limp and slow gait.” That observation, combined with images sent to law enforcement databases, led Customs and Border Protection to identify him within hours, according to CBP officials.
Here’s what should enrage every American: Medina was already on ICE’s radar. The Department of Homeland Security confirmed he had been previously arrested for shoplifting and released before allegedly murdering Gorman. Released—back onto the streets of a sanctuary city that prides itself on protecting criminal illegal aliens over its own citizens. And Sheridan Gorman wasn’t just a statistic; her obituary, as published by the Chicago Tribune , describes someone who “had a way of making people feel seen, valued, and believed in.”
She played field hockey, lacrosse, and bowling in high school. Friends, in statements to local media, say she radiated warmth and brought people together. She was the kind of young woman America needs more of—the kind who lifts up everyone around her, who makes “ordinary moments feel extraordinary simply by being in them.” But now she’s gone. And a Venezuelan national who shouldn’t have been here in the first place sits in custody, his freedom having ended where it always should have—at the border.
How many more Sheridan Gormans must die before sanctuary cities wake up? How many more families must bury their children because politicians prioritize illegal immigrants over American citizens? The arrest report notes Medina’s limp made him identifiable. But what makes our leaders so blind to the consequences of their open-border policies? The answer, as always, is politics over people. And another bright light has been extinguished because of it.
Providence watches over the bold.
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