NAPERVILLE, Ill. — A DuPage County judge granted a motion filed by prosecutors asking the court to reconsider its decision to release the suspect charged in the shooting of an 18-year-old man in Naperville last month.
Jermaine Badie is charged with aggravated battery-discharge of a machine gun and unlawful use of weapons-loaded machine gun in the shooting of an 18-year-old man on Oct. 28. He appeared in court Tuesday, along with his defense attorney.
A judge presiding over the matter Tuesday cited a “real and present threat to the safety of any person or persons in the community” when issuing her decision to order the suspect detained. He was previously granted pre-trial release, despite prosecutors’ request to hold him until trial.
The victim’s family told WGN the victim spent close to three weeks in the hospital, including one in the ICU, after he was shot in the chest, and he still has a long road to recovery ahead of him.
Motion to detain
According to the original motion to detain filed by the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office, the victim was found lying in a grassy area with a gunshot wound to the chest in the 100 block of Testa Drive around 8:45 p.m. on Oct. 28, according to Naperville police.
He was taken to an area hospital with injuries believed to be non-life threatening.
Court documents show when officers arrived on scene after receiving a 911 call, the victim was on his back with blood on his chest and surrounding him in the grass. Officers found a BB gun under his body.
The bullet had entered through the victim’s chest, the motion says, a couple inches to the right of his heart, before exiting through his back.
When initially requesting pre-trial release be denied, State’s Attorney Bob Berlin’s office wrote, “The defendant poses a real and present threat to the safety of not only the victim, (NAME REDACTED), but also to the community.”
The motion alleges that Badie was armed with a modified weapon “designed to act like a firearm” and that “he fired the weapon in public at an apartment complex.” The motion also claims that only the malfunctioning of his weapon prevented Badie from “empty(ing) the entire 30-round magazine into the victim” and that “when he fired his weapon, he showed a complete disregard for the safety of human life.”
“There is no condition or combination that can mitigate the threat the defendant poses to the victim and to society,” the motion states.
Court documents: Happened during fight
According to the motion, the victim had gotten into an argument via text message with another male, which led to a confrontation at an apartment in the 100 block of Testa Drive on the night of Oct. 28.
The male, whose apartment this occurred at, said he ran away from the scene after the victim was shot because he was scared. He was later driven to the police department after telling his parents what happened.
According to the witness’ testimony, during his text argument with the victim, he was inside his apartment with four other people, including Badie. When he told the group the victim was coming by to presumably fight, someone else allegedly took out a gun and handed it to Badie.
The group allegedly went outside the apartment as the victim arrived.
According to the male, Badie lifted his shirt to show the victim and his friends that he had a gun in his waistband. At one point, the male told officers he wished the victim hadn’t come because he was worried Badie “wasn’t really in a good headset.”
The fight unfolded between the male who lives in the apartment and the victim, prosecutors said. The male said he wasn’t concerned about the victim being armed because he sometimes carried a BB gun, not a real gun.
According to court documents, as the fight unfolded, the male heard a loud boom and saw Badie pointing his gun at the victim, who never showed any weapon.
Officers later located Badie, who agreed to speak with investigators at the Naperville Police Department, court records show. Before transporting the suspect, officers performed a safety search and located a white, powdery substance on Badie, later identified as cocaine.
When questioned by a detective, the motion states, Badie claimed the victim “had a gun in his hand and was moving it slowly back and forth in a horizontal motion.” Badie then said he shot the victim because he “saw a barrel straight in my face,” then wrapped the gun in his coat and ditched it.
According to the motion, police did not find the firearm when they located Badie’s coat, but using surveillance video and witness statements, officers located the firearm and confirmed it was the one used to shoot the victim.
The motion states the gun does not have a serial number and, in addition to an extended magazine, has threading for a silencer and a switch, which essentially converts the semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun.
Upon inspection, the motion states, it was learned that the gun jammed upon firing, or “the entire magazine would have been emptied.”
