“She was really an amazing person. I grieve not only for all of the people that she touched in this life, but the people she won’t touch,” her mother said. “No one should have to deal with the police coming to your door at 6:00 a.m.”
Gorman was an 18-year-old freshman at Loyola University Chicago shot in the back while she and some friends were walking on the shore of Lake Michigan to see the Northern Lights on March 19.
“He moved toward her threateningly. She turned around and warned her friends that there was a man with a gun and they needed to run. And they ran. She ran. She made it about 40 feet and he shot her in the back,” her mother said. “They say it was a senseless tragedy. It wasn’t. It was a murder. It was a preventable murder.”
26-year-old Jose Medina, a Venezuelan national who authorities say entered the country illegally, has been charged. The Department of Homeland Security says Medina was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol in May of 2023 and released into the country under the Biden administration. Just over a month later, they say he was caught shoplifting in Chicago, arrested, and released again. An arrest warrant was issued after he didn’t show up for court.
“Clearly, there needs to be some cooperation between state and local government and federal officials,” Gorman’s father said. “When someone commits a crime and they’ve been here illegally, there needs to be cooperation. He was arrested for a nonviolent crime, but he was also here illegally. In our mind, he should have been handed over to the feds at that point.”
“They’ve awakened a big grizzly mama bear,” her mother said. “I have to turn this devastating darkness into light somehow.”
