Chicago Alderwoman Maria Hadden closed her office for the rest of the week after public fury erupted over her suggestion that Sheridan Gorman, the 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago freshman murdered on a pier in Rogers Park, was simply in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and may have "startled" the man accused of killing her.
According to Fox News, the man charged with Gorman's murder is Jose Medina-Medina, a 25-year-old illegal immigrant from Venezuela who was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol on May 9, 2023, and then released into the country under the Biden administration.
Gorman was killed on March 19 around 1 a.m. while on a pier just north of her university campus. A police source described the attack as an apparent ambush, with the suspect reportedly wearing some kind of face mask or covering. Hadden's response was to float the idea that the victim somehow provoked her own death.
In an interview with Fox 32 Chicago, Hadden suggested Gorman had been in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and speculated that she might have "startled" Medina-Medina. The remarks ignited immediate backlash, which Hadden later attributed to conservative media attention. In her telling, the problem was not what she said but who amplified it.
"In an effort to make sense of a senseless situation, I said things that landed wrong with some people."
Landed wrong. That is a remarkable way to describe telling a grieving community that a teenager out near her own college campus bore some ambient responsibility for being murdered.
Hadden went further, insisting her words were twisted:
"My comments were never intended to blame the victim or to imply that Sheridan should not have been out enjoying the park or that it was her fault that she was shot."
But that is precisely what "wrong place at the wrong time" communicates, especially when paired with the claim that the victim "startled" her attacker. The plain meaning of those words places the burden of explanation on the dead girl, not the man who killed her. Hadden apologized for "any additional pain" her comments "may have caused," the kind of conditional language designed to sound contrite while conceding nothing.
She also complained that "some media outlets are intentionally creating sound bites to misconstrue my words during this tragedy." No one misconstrued anything. They played the tape.
Hadden announced her office closure in a Facebook story on Wednesday, citing safety concerns:
"My team and I are taking these precautions to ensure our safety and ability to maintain the level of service that you expect of us. I am still working as usual and will be out and about in our ward this week."
So the alderwoman who told an 18-year-old's family that their daughter stumbled into her own murder now wants the public to sympathize with her safety concerns. The elected official retreats behind locked doors. The constituent is in a coffin.
This is a pattern that plays out constantly in cities governed by leaders who treat every violent crime as a mysterious act of nature rather than a failure of policy. A young woman is dead. The man charged with killing her should never have been on that pier, in that neighborhood, or in this country. And the local politician's first instinct was to wonder aloud what the victim did wrong.
The facts of Medina-Medina's time in the United States tell their own story. U.S. Customs and Border Protection identified him as the suspect. He was caught at the border in May 2023 and released. That same year, he was charged with shoplifting after prosecutors said he stole just over $130 in merchandise from a Macy's in downtown Chicago. He then failed to appear for his court hearing on that charge, resulting in a warrant.
Also in 2023, court documents obtained by Fox News Digital show Medina-Medina told officials he was living at Leone Beach Park fieldhouse in Rogers Park, which was being used as a city-sponsored shelter for migrants. The shelter closed in 2024.
A building engineer, as relayed in the arrest report, identified Medina-Medina in part by his "very distinct limp and gait." He was seen on video in his apartment building's lobby waiting for an elevator while unmasked and was ultimately arrested at his apartment in Rogers Park.
Medina-Medina was scheduled to appear in court Monday, but the hearing was postponed because he is hospitalized with tuberculosis. A Cook County Sheriff's Office spokesman confirmed to Fox News Digital that he was in the medical division of the jail. The hearing is now scheduled for Friday morning.
Caught, released, sheltered by the city, charged with a crime, skipped court, and still walking free in the same neighborhood where he allegedly ambushed a college freshman. Every step of that timeline represents a system that chose not to act.
On Tuesday, Sheridan Gorman's body was brought back to Yorktown Heights. Her family released a statement that carries more dignity than anything her alderwoman managed: "What could have been an unbearable journey was carried out with dignity, honor, and profound respect. We are deeply thankful for the care shown to our daughter and to our family in that moment."
The Gorman family extended its "deepest gratitude" to the Yorktown Police Department and the law enforcement agencies that escorted their daughter home. They thanked the people who showed up. Not the ones who made excuses.
Sheridan Gorman was not in the wrong place. She was at college, near her campus, in a city that was supposed to be safe enough for an 18-year-old to walk near a pier. The wrong place was not the pier. The wrong place was a policy regime that catches illegal immigrants at the border, releases them, shelters them at taxpayer expense, loses track of them after they skip court, and then asks what the victim did to provoke the inevitable.
Maria Hadden closed her office for the week. The Gorman family buried their daughter.