A 19-year-old is accused of shooting and killing a 17-year-old orphan because she allegedly threw water on restaurant employees at a Chicago McDonald’s.
In the Little Village neighbourhood of the Windy City, Tierra Franklin was shot and killed Friday.
Anthony Heredia, a suspect age 19, claims he was called there by an unnamed friend who asked him to exact revenge on Franklin for throwing water.
Who asked Heredia to avenge Franklin, and what precipitated the alleged water-throwing incident, are both unknown.
It happened at a drive-through window during a “ongoing dispute,” according to the police.
Heredia is accused of firing twice at Franklin as she rode by on a bike, hitting her once in the back.
The adolescent was taken to St Anthony’s Hospital where doctors declared her dead.
She had aspirations of becoming a lawyer when she grew older.
During the first half of the July 4 holiday weekend, 35 people were shot across the city, and five of the deaths included Franklin.
The violent slaying of the schoolgirl is the latest in a string of terrible catastrophes that have affected her family.
Keeyana Sanderson, Tierra’s mother, passed away from cancer in April of this year.
When Tierra was just five years old, her father, who has not been named, was shot and killed.
The facts behind that murder are still unknown, but DailyMail.com has spoken to a family to get more information.
Apparently telling authorities that he shot the girl because he witnessed her throw water at a McDonald’s employee in an incident at the start of the holiday weekend, a Chicago man accused of murder in the shooting death of a 17-year-old orphan.
Around 3 p.m. on Friday, Tierra Franklin was allegedly shot and killed by Anthony Heredia, 19, outside the fast food restaurant in the Little Village district of Chicago.
Cook County prosecutors said at Heredia’s bond hearing on Sunday that Franklin, of the 3700 block of West Cermak Road, had reportedly thrown a cup of water through the drive-thru window at a worker during an ongoing argument.
After the shooting, Heredia was detained on Friday after being recognized by numerous McDonald’s employees as having been in the establishment just before the shooting.
Prosecutors claimed that he was also captured on security footage reportedly removing a spent casing from the site.
The expended casing was discovered in Heredia’s pocket when he was apprehended a short while later at his residence, according to the prosecution.
Heredia allegedly admitted to authorities that he received a call from some McDonald’s staff asking him to visit the eatery after they recognized Franklin and members of her family from a fight that occurred the week before.
Heredia was informed everything was alright when he arrived at the McDonald’s on Friday, according to the prosecution, so he waited in the parking lot.
Then, when Franklin allegedly hurled a cup of water at a staffer, he saw her approaching the drive-thru window.
Prosecutors claim that Heredia then pulled out a revolver and shot Franklin again, killing her.
Franklin was entering her senior year at Curie High School and had a desire of becoming a lawyer, according to family members who spoke to ABC7.
Franklin, who was under DCFS’s custody, had just just lost her mother to cancer and her father to gun violence when she was a little girl.
It is unknown how Franklin and Heredia are related.
The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services had been monitoring Heredia’s placement with foster parents, according to his attorney, Assistant Public Defender Courtney Smallwood, who spoke on his behalf at the hearing on Sunday.
In the fall, he was scheduled to start his senior year at the exclusive Country Club Hills Tech and Trade school.
Heredia entered a guilty plea in January to reckless discharge of a handgun in relation to an incident that occurred in 2021.
Although he received a two-year prison term, he was freed in March after receiving time served.
It’s only that I want to apologize to the victim’s family, Heredia said in court on Sunday.
At the hearing, Circuit Judge Susana Ortiz highlighted that Heredia was permitted to purchase a rifle at the age of 19.
We have a 19-year-old who can obtain firearms more easily than he can a pack of cigarettes. I’ll note it here, Ortiz added. “That’s something we might want to consider,” she said.
It was decided to hold Heredia without bond.