Chicago man gets time served for role in bar fight

Was charged with 3 others in attempted murder case after 2019 incident

A Chicago man who threw one punch before bullets flew in an Aug. 26, 2019 Flick’s Tap bar fight was sentenced to time served Friday.

Jonathon Berkley, 35, pleaded guilty in March 2020 to battery resulting in serious bodily injury, a Level 5 Felony.

His case dragged out partly because he was charged with three other men in an attempted murder case. He was the last man sentenced.

His lawyer Cipriano Rodriguez said that Berkley was already at the Hammond bar when co-defendants Michael Rivera, Daquan Birdsong, and Xavier Solis walked in. He only really knew Rivera, the lawyer said.

When Rivera got into a fight, Berkley tried to “break it up.” After Berkley got hit, he punched the victim once in the back of the head. When shots rang out, Berkley ended up shot in the leg and grazed in the back, according to court records.

Berkley was arrested in September 2019, spending over six months in jail, with another 21 months on home detention. He was cooperative and remorseful for his role, Rodriguez said. He asked for time served. Deputy Prosecutor Jacquelyn Altpeter agreed he should get time served, saying Berkley “has done very well” and was “very cooperative” since the case started.

Berkley spoke in court, apologizing to the victim and his family.

“If I could take it back, I would,” he said.

The case was before Judge Salvador Vasquez.

Rivera, Birdsong, Solis and Berkley were each charged originally with attempted murder, aggravated battery, battery with a deadly weapon, and battery resulting in serious bodily injury.

Rivera pleaded guilty to battery resulting in bodily injury. He was sentenced to one year of probation in May 2021. Birdsong was sentenced to six years in prison in April 2021 after he pleaded guilty to criminal recklessness. Solis was sentenced to four years in prison Thursday after pleading to criminal recklessness.

The victim was at the bar when he spotted the girlfriend of his friend’s brother, according to court documents.

After making a comment to her about “talking to other guys,” court documents state, he was confronted by a Hispanic man with a ponytail, identified by multiple witnesses as Michael Anthony Rivera.

A fistfight broke out. Moments later, in the early hours of Aug. 26, 2019, the man was shot, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Rivera, who allegedly approached the man first, grabbed a pool ball off a table and struck him on the head, according to a court document.

As a fight started and the men fell to the floor, a second man — allegedly Birdsong — pulled out a handgun with a green laser beam, according to the probable cause affidavit.

The victim told a Hammond detective that “he felt himself getting shot” by Birdsong, and he pulled one of the people he was fighting with on top of him, the affidavit said.

“Everyone else was in such close proximity…that (the victim) knew someone else got shot, too,” court documents state.

Authorities accused Solis of shooting at the victim but he missed.

The victim was shot six times and was taken to Methodist Hospital Northlake in Gary before being airlifted to the intensive care unit at the University of Chicago Hospital, court documents said.