Who is Ruben Roman Jr? 21-year-old companion of Adam Toledo faces warrant for skipping gun case hearing
A man who was spotted with Adam Toledo, Ruben Roman Jr, before he was shot by the police, was able to leave the police station after he got bail on his own recognizance with a May court date.
Ruben Roman Jr was expected to appear in court on Wednesday, April 14 for a hearing in connection with a separate 2019 gun case, but skipped the hearing. So an arrest warrant was issued by Judge Timothy Chambers.
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Who is Ruben Roman Jr?
Ruben Roman Jr's connection with Adam Toledo's case did not surface until recently. That is until he skipped the hearing of the other case. Speaking of this, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office said, "Misdemeanor charges, like the resisting charge here, are directly filed by the police department and the State’s Attorney’s Office is not alerted when someone is arrested on a misdemeanor charge and receives a bond from the police station."
In 2019 Roman had been sentenced to probation after he pleaded guilty to a single count of unlawful use of a weapon. Court records show that following this the prosecutors dropped nearly a dozen additional weapons charges against him. Five months after his sentencing, prosecutors began filing petitions alleging that Roman Jr had violated the terms of his probation.
Additional petitions were filed in March and August 2020. It was at the hearing on April 14 that the prosecutors had filed another petition stating that Roman Jr had indeed violated probation rules by getting involved in the Adam Toledo case. Officers who responded to a call on March 29 said that they saw Toledo and 21-year-old Roman Jr standing in an alley to the west of the 2300 block of South Sawyer Avenue. When spotted, the two of them ran and that resulted in an officer shooting the 13-year-old Toledo fatally.
The officer who shot Toledo was identified as Eric Stillman. The footage of the officers' body camera was released on Thursday, April 15, by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability almost two weeks after the incident had occurred. The 34-year-old officer was assigned to the 10th District, beat 1065b and has been on the force since August 31, 2015. Tim Grace, Stillman’s lawyer, told Block Club Chicago, "I do not think he will be prosecuted for a crime, and I do believe that if COPA and the Police Department are fair and look at the undisputed evidence, he will be exonerated of any type of a charge."
In the footage, it was also seen that Stillman had in fact tried to perform CPR on Toledo, but he failed to resuscitate the 13-year-old.