A migrant from Venezuela is facing murder charges after he allegedly killed a man in front of two witnesses, CBC in Chicago reported Tuesday.
Kevin Perez-Parades, 24, was arrested two weeks ago after the murder of Crismer Nieves, 25, and detained by Judge Caroline Glennon-Goodman this week, adding that he "for lack of a better word, executed" Nieves.
Prosecutor Shelly Keane told the judge that surveillance footage showed that Nieves entered a gas station Sept. 10 in the Chicago neighborhood of Englewood. The video then showed Nieves walking out of the gas station with no weapons and then in between two SUVs. Perez-Parades and Nieves then greeted with a hand slap as if they knew each other, having a conversation on camera.
Nieves then took off running and was later seen moments later by witnesses being confronted by Perez-Paredes, who had exited the vehicle with a gun.
Keane said "the victim was on the ground with his hands up, unarmed, yelling, ‘No! No! No!'" when Perez-Paredes shot him multiple times in the head and arm. While neither witness was able to identify Perez-Paredes, he admitted in a police interview to being the shooter and later text messages on his phone were found in which he admitted to the crime.
Michael Roman, an assistant public defender, was unable to persuade the judge that Perez-Parades should be released, saying the allegations "show animus towards one person and one person only, who is now deceased."
Perez-Paredes graduated from high school in Venezuela and had lived in Chicago for four months, according to Roman.
The shooting came as several longtime Chicago residents warned that the city will "go up in flames" as tension rise between the city's gang elements and Venezuelan migrants, such as the criminal Tren de Aragua gang.
Speaking exclusively to the New York Post last week, former gang member Tyrone Muhammad criticized the city's policy on migrants.
"It is impossible to release gang members and criminals into our country through the borders and broken walls and infiltrate them in our community that's already impoverished and broken," Muhammad told the outlet.
"When the black gangs here get fed up with the illegalities and criminal activities of these migrants or noncitizens, the city of Chicago is going to go up in flames, and there will be nothing the National Guard or the government can do about it when the bloodshed hits the streets. It'll be blacks against migrants."
According to NBC5, Chicago has spent nearly $500,000 million over the past two years on the 42,000 migrants who have arrived in the city since 2022.