Bond denied for teen charged in death of man near CTA stop

Prosecutors said distinctive clothing allegedly worn by a 17-year-old suspect was key in the murder case against him after a fatal shooting outside a Rogers Park CTA station in September.

Dylan Young, who is charged as an adult with first-degree murder, appeared via Zoom video call before Judge Mary Marubio at the Leighton Criminal Court Building for a bond hearing Friday. She ruled that he will be held without bond.

Young, who was 16 at the time of the shooting, was arrested in the 6400 block of North Winchester Avenue about 9:45 a.m. Thursday after being identified through multiple surveillance videos as the assailant who shot 26-year-old Joel Jenkins on Sept. 15 in the 1400 block of West Morse Avenue, near the CTA’s Morse Red Line station, police and prosecutors said.

On the day of the shooting, Jenkins had been texting his girlfriend, Dominique Douglas, throughout the day about buying her a puppy.

Jenkins found a woman who was selling a young black-and-white pit bull and said he would have enough to buy it if he got money back from a friend who owed him.

Jenkins and Douglas had decided to meet in Rogers Park to get the money from the friend.

During the hearing, prosecutors said video footage showed Jenkins and a witness (who the Tribune knows to be Douglas) walking to the station when he stopped short of the doors into the station. He and Douglas began looking through her bag as Young got out of an unknown vehicle and began walking down the street toward them. The video showed him wearing a gray Nike hoodie, a mask with “Chicago” printed on it, patterned bluejeans and white Nike shoes with black stripes, according to prosecutors.

Young pulled out a handgun from his pocket with his right hand, and when Jenkins looked up from the bag, Young began firing, prosecutors said. Patrol officers heard the shots and went toward the station.

Young turned a corner and entered a black SUV through the rear driver’s side as it drove away, prosecutors said. Officers pursued the vehicle, but the chase was terminated “due to safety reasons.”

Officers found six cartridge casings and one unfired cartridge at the scene, prosecutors said.

Later, Young’s mother identified him in the photos and videos both with and without his mask on, prosecutors said.

Young’s cellphone records also showed him in the same areas as the videos, and it also showed that after the shooting, he fled south before returning home back north, prosecutors said.

Facebook images also showed him wearing the same hoodie worn during the shooting, prosecutors said.

Young was arrested Thursday while at his grandmother’s house, where he was on electronic monitoring, prosecutors say, because he was previously arrested Oct. 12 for an unlawful use of a weapon case due to carrying a handgun with an extended clip. During the October arrest, he was wearing the same kind of shoes and “what appear (ed) to be the same pants” as the shooter caught on camera, but the gun he had was a different caliber than the weapon used in the shooting.

At the time of the homicide, Young was serving a two-year probation for a robbery case, prosecutors said.

Young’s public defender said Young attends Innovations High School, and he lives with his grandmother, who is his legal guardian, and he has lived with her most of his life. He also lives with his younger brother and sister, and enjoys playing basketball in his spare time.

The evidence in the case is circumstantial, and “there’s no indication that these items of clothing are so unique that they would be deemed insurmountable in saying that has to be Mr. Young wearing that particular clothing,” the defense attorney said. The shooter was also mostly masked at the time of the shooting.

Cynthia Howard, Jenkins’ mother, said she learned Thursday night from a detective that Young had been picked up and charged with first-degree murder earlier that day. But the reality didn’t set in until she saw stories on the news of his arrest Friday morning.

“I was happy, very, very happy,” she said. “It’s not going to bring my son back, but I feel like my son is going to get justice for his murder. This is an opportunity for this young man to be held accountable for what he’s done.”

Howard said she knew who detectives had suspected for a while, and she knew she had to stay quiet to not harm the investigation. She would keep tabs on him, looking at his Facebook page, seeing his photos of holding up guns.

“It was very difficult for me to sit and do nothing and not seek revenge,” she said. “You don’t know how many nights I’ve cried. … Everybody is so filled with grief and sadness. It’s like it happened yesterday.”

But she said she was thankful to the detective on the case who “went above and beyond and stayed vigilant with her job and her responsibilities with the job.”