A 53-year-old man is in critical but stable condition after he was shot in the stomach inside an apartment building in the 300 block of Western Avenue in Joliet, and police have charged his 35-year-old neighbor, Antonio Sims, with armed violence and a string of weapons and drug offenses. Officers responded to the building shortly before 9 a.m. on Sunday, September 6, after reports of a gunshot victim, and found Sims on the eighth floor with a cut to his left hand while the wounded man had made his way down to the first floor seeking help from another tenant.
According to the Joliet Police Department, officers were dispatched to 373 Western Avenue at 8:53 a.m. and located the victim on the building's first floor, where responding officers gave him emergency first aid before Joliet Fire Department paramedics transported him to St. Joseph Medical Center. Police believe Sims and the victim knew each other, though as reported by CBS News, the circumstances leading to the struggle between the two men remain under investigation.
Struggle on the Eighth Floor
Investigators believe the shooting may have happened during a physical struggle between the two men, and police think the laceration to Sims' left hand occurred during that altercation, per the same CBS News report. Sims was taken to Silver Cross Hospital for treatment of his hand injury before being taken into police custody.
During a search of Sims' apartment, detectives recovered a loaded 9mm handgun that had been reported stolen out of Aurora, along with a substance suspected to be cocaine, according to the Shaw Local news outlet. The Will County State's Attorney's Office has charged Sims with armed violence, aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon, unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon, possession of a stolen firearm, possession of a controlled substance, and not having a FOID card.
Mandatory Prison Time Looms Over Top Charge
The armed violence charge carries especially heavy weight under Illinois law. Under 720 ILCS 5/33A-2, armed violence involving a Category I weapon such as a handgun is a Class X felony carrying a mandatory minimum prison sentence of 15 years upon conviction, according to the Law Office of Clyde Guilamo. Sims is currently held at the Will County Adult Detention Facility awaiting his first court appearance.
Since Illinois abolished cash bail under the Pretrial Fairness Act in September 2023, Will County judges now determine pretrial detention based on public safety risk and flight threat rather than a monetary bond for qualifying felonies, the same Shaw Local report notes. That framework will shape how a judge weighs Sims' detention status once his case is formally heard.
A Block With a History of Gunfire
This is not the first time gunfire has drawn police to the 300 block of Western Avenue. In February 2026, a 44-year-old Joliet man was granted pretrial release with home confinement after allegedly firing multiple gunshots into the air outside a building on the same block, per Shaw Local's earlier coverage.
The block's history stretches back further still. In September 2024, Joliet police and federal task force agents arrested a 19-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy on attempted murder charges after an August 2024 shooting outside Western Food Mart at 308 Western Avenue left two teenagers wounded, according to CBS News. And in September 2018, Joliet police arrested a 26-year-old man in the same block on armed habitual criminal charges after he allegedly fired a handgun into a car pulling out of a parking lot, per a Patch report from that year.
The apartment building at 373 Western Avenue, historically known as the Mary Walker Hotel, is an eight-story residential structure in Joliet's St. John's neighborhood. The exact nature of the relationship between Sims and the victim, along with the full circumstances that led to the struggle, remains under investigation as the case moves through Will County court.
