A Cook County judge sentenced Carlos Coleman to 15 years in prison this week for his role in a 2020 shooting near the Western Avenue Blue Line station that left 23-year-old Brandon McGhee dead and a teenage boy wounded, even though Coleman never fired the gun that killed him. The sentence comes just weeks after the actual shooter, Lazerice Drew, was handed 35 years for the same killing.
Coleman, who was 39 at the time of the shooting and is now 45, pleaded guilty in March 2024 to second-degree murder rather than first-degree murder, according to CWB Chicago. Prosecutors said Coleman helped instigate the confrontation that led to the gunfire, though he was not accused of firing the weapon himself. Judge John Lyke presided over both Coleman's and Drew's sentencings.
Under Illinois law, second-degree murder is a Class 1 felony carrying a sentencing range of four to 20 years, and it makes defendants eligible for a 50% day-for-day reduction in their time served — a stark contrast to first-degree murder, which mandates that inmates serve their full term, according to the Law Office of Clyde Guilamo. Coleman has already earned 2,732 days of Cook County jail credit, which is expected to offset the bulk of his remaining sentence.
How a Non-Shooter Faced a Murder Charge
Coleman's conviction rests on Illinois' law of accountability, a legal doctrine that allows prosecutors to convict someone of murder without proving they fired a shot or caused direct physical harm, as long as they solicited, aided, or shared in a common plan that led to a killing, per the Restore Justice Foundation. Prosecutors used that framework to argue Coleman set the fatal encounter in motion by throwing a punch at a 16-year-old boy who ducked out of the way.
According to the seed reporting, Brandon McGhee had stopped at a convenience store with friends on the 1900 block of North Western Avenue when Coleman, Drew, and a third person — who appeared to have Puerto Rican flags wrapped around them, per the same account — crossed the street and demanded to know the victims' gang affiliation. McGhee and the 16-year-old boy exited a vehicle as the confrontation escalated. Drew reached toward his waistband as if for a weapon before opening fire, striking McGhee in the neck and the teenager in the arm. Coleman fled in one direction while Drew and the third person ran the other way.
McGhee died from his injuries. His friends and family have stated he had no gang ties, and police said neither he nor the wounded teenager had any prior contact with the Chicago Police Department.
A Weekend of Bloodshed Across Chicago
The shooting happened just before 7 p.m. on June 20, 2020, during Puerto Rican Day festivities that coincided with Father's Day weekend — a stretch during which at least 102 people were shot and 14 killed across Chicago, according to AP News, the highest number of shooting victims recorded in a single Chicago weekend up to that point in 2020. The intersection sits on a commercial stretch of North Western Avenue between Armitage Avenue and Cortland Street, where Logan Square meets Bucktown near the CTA Blue Line station, according to CBS Chicago. The wounded teenager was taken to AMITA Health Saints Mary and Elizabeth Medical Center in good condition.
A stray bullet from the confrontation pierced the windshield of a passing car on Western Avenue, cutting one occupant with flying glass and narrowly missing both people inside, underscoring how the daytime gunfire endangered bystanders far beyond the intended targets. In the aftermath of that violent weekend, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown publicly criticized existing electronic monitoring systems and called for stricter oversight of violent repeat offenders, according to CBS News.
A Convicted Killer Already on Parole
Coleman was on parole at the time of the 2020 shooting, having been released in 2018 after serving 20 years of a 40-year sentence for a 1998 Illinois murder conviction, the seed report notes. Drew, meanwhile, evaded capture for a year after the shooting. Investigators identified him by matching distinctive tattoos in his social media photos to security footage of the gunman, securing an arrest warrant within two weeks. Surveillance footage showed Drew changing his shirt after the attack, and police recovered his discarded gun in an alley behind the 1900 block of North Milwaukee Avenue about 20 minutes later. He wasn't arrested until a traffic crash in July 2021.
Drew ultimately pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder, receiving consecutive sentences of 25 years and 10 years for a total of 35 years. Under Illinois' Truth-in-Sentencing law, he must serve 100% of the murder sentence and 85% of the attempted murder sentence before he's eligible for release.
