Man Charged With Shooting 3 During Aurora Child Custody Exchange
CHICAGO (STMW) -- A Chicago man already in prison on a weapons-related conviction is facing new charges for a west suburban shooting that injured three people in 2013.
Darrel D. Miller, 24, is charged with three counts of aggravated battery with a firearm for the Jan. 5, 2013, shooting in the parking lot of an Aurora apartment complex, according to an Aurora police statement.
The shooting happened during a child custody exchange between a 17-year-old Chicago woman and a 21-year-old Peoria man, who is the father of her young son, police said.
Miller and two other people — a man and a woman, both 22 and from Chicago — came with the baby's mother to the parking lot in the 2600 block of Village Green, police said. The baby's father showed up with four other men from Peoria.
During the exchange, the 22-year-old Chicago man with Miller got in an argument with the baby's father, and a fight broke out, police said.
After the fight, the groups headed back to their vehicles. That's when Miller took out a gun and fired multiple shots at the minivan carrying the men from Peoria, injuring three of them, police claim.
The baby's father was shot in the leg, while a 19-year-old man with him was shot in the face, police said. The 59-year-old man driving the minivan was shot in the chest and seriously wounded, and hit a parked car as he tried to drive to a nearby hospital.
Miller fled in a car with the young child, the baby's mother and the two other Chicago residents, police said. The woman ultimately left Miller in Aurora and drove back to Chicago.
"The charges lodged in this case illustrate that even after two years, the Aurora police will continue to do everything in their power to hold offenders accountable," Aurora police Chief Greg Thomas said in the statement. "This was a callous, violent act that occurred in the middle of the day in which many more people could have been injured or worse."
Miller, of the 10000 block of South Green Street in Chicago, is currently serving a one-year sentence for an unrelated weapons conviction in Cook County, also from 2013, prison records show.
Authorities expect him to be transferred to the DuPage County jail in Wheaton, where he will be held on a $300,000 bond, police said.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2015. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
