Suspect, 30, charged with murder after four shot ‘execution-style’ while sleeping on Chicago train
Police said a woman sleeping in the same carriage as one of the victims was left unharmed – but only because the gunman appeared to run out of bullets
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A 30-year-old man has been charged with murder after four people were killed “execution-style” in a mass shooting on a train in Chicago on Labor Day.
Rhanni Davis, 30, from Chicago, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Margaret Miller, 64, Simeon Bihesi, 28, Adrian Collins, 60, and a third unidentified man.
Forest Park Police Department were called to reports that three people had been shot while asleep on a CTA Blueline train at around 5.30am local time on Monday morning.
Officers arrived at Forest Park CTA Blueline Station to find four victims suffering gunshot wounds.
Forest Park Deputy Chief of Police Christopher Chin told The Independent that three victims were found in one carriage and were dead on the scene.
The fourth – Collins – was found with abdomen wounds in a separate carriage and was transferred to a nearby hospital. However, he died in hospital soon after.
Chin told The Independent the attack appears to have been “random as there was no altercation leading up to the shootings.”
“As the train approached the first stop, Davis’ can be seen in the CCTV footage standing in the carriage with the three persons who appeared to be asleep – these victims were not sat together,” he said.
“He then killed each of them one by one and then walked into the adjacent carriage where he then shoots Collins who also appeared to be asleep.”
Chin said that there was also a woman wrapped in a blanket sleeping in the same carriage as Collins at the time of the shooting.
She was unharmed in the attack.
Police believe she was only spared because the gunman ran out of bullets, Chin said.
In total, six gunshots were fired with two of the victims shot twice.
Davis was arrested within 90 minutes of the shooting after Chicago police officers identified him from surveillance footage on board another CTA Pink Line Train in a separate part of the city, police told The Independent.
In a press conference, Daniel Pater, lieutenant in charge at Forest Park Police Department, said investigators had located the weapon used in the attack – a 9mm Glock 43 – and that it belonged to the suspect.
The Labor Day incident was branded as an isolated attack and police stressed the absence of an immediate threat to the Forest Park suburban community that houses 14,000 people.
Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins told reporters at The Associated Press that it was unlikely that the victims saw the shooter as: “They were shot execution-style as they slept.”
The motive for the attack remains unclear.
When asked if the victims were homeless, Chicago Transit Authority president Dorval Carter Jr said: “First of all I can’t speak to the question of whether these individuals are homeless or not.
“I think that’s something that the state’s attorney and the police will speak to at a later time.
“What I can tell you, is around the issue of homelessness itself, we have engaged and provided more resources to support people who are homeless on CTA than ever in the history of our agency.”
Davis is set to appear in court on Wednesday afternoon.