A Gary man has been charged with shooting a man who had broken up a fight between two women.
Raymond Santiago, 20, is charged with attempted murder; aggravated battery, a Level 3 felony; battery by means of a deadly weapon, a Level 5 felony; and battery resulting in serious bodily injury, a Level 5 felony. According to court records, he is currently being held at Gary City Jail on $100,000 bond.
Shortly after midnight on Dec. 21, a witness told police that she and her boyfriend were in the 300 block of Fayette Street when the man was shot, according to the probable cause affidavit. Before the shooting, the girlfriend was involved in a physical altercation with her cousin’s friend. The man broke up the altercation, but the other woman called her brother to come and take out the man, court records state.
Police visited the shooting victim at University of Chicago Medical Center. He was alert but unable to speak due to a ventilator; the gunshot entered his chest and exited in the back, records state. The man provided written responses detailing what had occurred: His girlfriend and another woman were fighting, and he tried to break it up. As the man was walking away, a grey car drove past; a man got out of the car and told him to come here. He saw the man holding a gun and tried to take off running before he was shot, the affidavit states.
Doorbell camera footage from a nearby house shows a man saying, “Yo Huh, don’t run (expletive) or your (expletive) is gonna die.” He draws a firearm and fires between three and five shots at the victim, court records state. The shooter then runs away north on Fayette Street. Police found three spent 9mm shell casings on the ground, records state.
After the shooting, multiple license plate readers located near the scene picked up a white Hyundai Venue with an Indiana temporary license plate issued to Raymond Santiago. There were also images of Santiago picked up on surveillance cameras at a gas station located at 4901 Melton Road, the affidavit states.
Santiago told police that his sister called him, saying a man had stomped her. When he arrived at the scene, everyone was yelling and his sister pointed at the victim, saying, “It was him, it was him,” court records state. He said he asked the man, “are you the one that was beating on them girls?”
The man’s arm was inside his shirt, and his sister told him to run, records state. He told police that the man had moved too fast. At first, he told police that he didn’t know where the gun was, but then said he fled to Pennsylvania Street and threw a Glock 19 Gen 5 9mm into a wooded area near 21st Avenue and Martin Luther King Drive, the affidavit states.
