Editorial: Sheridan Gorman was not in the wrong place at the wrong time. The system failed her.

Flowers lie on the pier at Tobey Prinz Beach in Chicago on March 23, 2026, near where Sheridan Gorman was fatally shot on the pier. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)
As we learn more about what led to the tragic shooting death of Loyola University freshman Sheridan Gorman, political agendas are threatening to subsume the grief we feel on her family’s behalf and what we can learn from all that preceded that fateful night to do a better job keeping Chicago safe.

News that a Venezuelan migrant, 25-year-old Jose Medina, has been charged with Gorman’s murder naturally has those clamoring for stronger enforcement of the nation’s immigration laws saying this is an example of how the sanctuary policies of cities like Chicago are making the public less safe.

Meanwhile, those on the left who tend to blanch at strict enforcement of our laws and who also object to the heavy-handed and shambolic way the Trump administration has implemented its immigration crackdown haven’t acquitted themselves particularly well, either.

Late last week, before Medina was identified as the suspect, Ald. Maria Hadden, 49th, who represents Loyola’s neighborhood of Rogers Park, said, “The big question from people is always the ‘why.’ And this why seems to have just been a senseless wrong place, wrong time tragedy.”

That observation, echoed in a local newspaper headline, didn’t sit well with Gorman’s family. In a statement, they said their daughter was out late on the beach near Loyola to try to see the northern lights.

“She was walking with a group of friends near her dorm, in an area that was understood to be safe,” the family’s statement read. “There was nothing reckless about her actions. What happened to Sheridan cannot be reduced to the idea of someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Hadden further mused in an interview with Fox 32 that Gorman and her friends “might have startled the (gunman) at the end of the pier unintentionally.”

Imagine watching that if this was your kid who was killed.

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The context in which the alderman was speaking was to reassure residents of her ward that police didn’t believe there was a threat to the broader community. But Hadden’s message, likely unintentionally, implied that such a shockingly awful incident was just sort of one of those things that happen in the big city. And, worse, that Gorman might have been somehow responsible for what happened.

We understand why Gorman’s traumatized family recoiled.

Still, Hadden’s struggle to explain the currently inexplicable — the lack of a known motive to gun down an 18-year-old female college student — highlights how much we still don’t know about why this happened. We need to find out.

Medina’s initial court appearance, scheduled for Monday, was delayed as he was in the hospital, under guard, suffering from tuberculosis, the Tribune reported.

The Department of Homeland Security said Medina initially entered the U.S. from Venezuela in May 2023. A month later, he was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of shoplifting at the Macy’s store on State Street. A judge issued a warrant for Medina’s arrest in September of that year after he failed to show up for a court hearing. That warrant still was pending when the shooting occurred.

So the first and perhaps most pressing question is what the motive was for this heinous act.

But, secondly, why was the arrest warrant for Medina not enforced for the past two-plus years?

The debate over those in our country without authorization is not what is most at issue for us in this terrible situation. It’s not as if victims of violent crime and their survivors feel better if a citizen is the perpetrator rather than an undocumented immigrant. Yes, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has lodged an arrest detainer requesting that the state not release Medina. DHS in a release called him a “criminal illegal alien.” But that ICE action came after he’d been charged by local officials with murder.

Obviously, given the gravity of the charges against him, Medina won’t be released back onto the streets while those charges are pending, regardless of what ICE does.

Our keener concern is with what happened after Medina’s arrest in June 2023 by local authorities. We’d like to see our local law enforcement agencies and judges determine how Medina fell through the cracks and to determine how their processes could be improved to ensure that those charged with crimes face justice rather than seemingly allowing some of those accused to avoid the consequences simply by not showing up.

Gorman’s family addressed that aspect of the story as well. “When systems fail — whether through release decisions, lack of coordination or unwillingness to act — the consequences are not abstract. They are real. And in our case, they are permanent.”

It’s not surprising, given the heated politics around immigration, that this tragedy is an international story now. Chicago and Illinois officials will be tempted to get into a back-and-forth with a Trump administration desiring to turn this story to its political benefit, not that Chicago and Illinois officials are immune from that concern.

The far more urgent priority is for city and state officials to reassure families wondering whether to send their teenagers to Chicago for their college educations that our system of justice will do everything possible to keep them safe.

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