A man was ordered detained Wednesday for his alleged role in a shootout on a Chicago Transit Authority bus earlier this week in the Douglas neighborhood that left his 19-year-old cousin dead and the bus driver wounded.
Jeremy Howard, 20, was on a bus at about 12:15 a.m. Monday with several of his cousins when the gun battle broke out in the 3400 block of South State Street, Cook County prosecutors and an assistant public defender said.
The incident, which was captured on CTA surveillance cameras, showed Howard and his cousins following an unknown passenger after he moved to the front of the bus.
At some point, Howard’s cousin, Lamar McKay, began attacking the passenger, including punching him several times in the head, according to prosecutors and police reports.
The passenger took out a .380-caliber handgun and shot McKay at close range in the chest, killing him, prosecutors said.
Howard and other cousins sought refuge behind a partition on the bus, and Howard fired several shots at the man who had shot his cousin — but instead struck the 51-year-old bus driver, prosecutors said.
The bus then crashed into a tree, and the man who shot McKay managed to escape through the front door and has not been identified, authorities said.
Howard allegedly then got off the bus through the middle exit and fired more shots at the man as he was running away.
Prosecutors said forensic testing confirmed that a weapon recovered at the scene had been used to shoot the bus driver and that McKay was shot with a different gun. Howard allegedly admitted to shooting the gun during an interview with investigators.
He faces felony counts of aggravated battery, aggravated discharge of a firearm and unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon.
Prosecutors said Howard was additionally wanted on a warrant out of Wisconsin for violations of his probation and parole in separate cases that he was convicted on, including for driving a vehicle when he was not authorized to do so and for possessing a dangerous weapon.
Howard, who lives in Milwaukee with his grandmother, was visiting family in Chicago at the time of the shooting, his attorney said. She argued that Howard had acted in self-defense after seeing “his relative killed in front of him" and was not a instigator of the fight.
Judge Antara Nath Rivera granted prosecutors' request to have Howard held in custody while awaiting trial, noting Howard was a convicted felon who was illegally in possession of the gun and put the bus driver and other “hard-working” members of the community in harm’s way with his alleged actions.
Howard was due back in court on Monday.
