A man has been charged with the shooting death of a Family Dollar store security guard last week in the Austin area on the West Side.
According to Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling, 36-year-old Rodgerick O’Neal has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Loyce Wright, aged 43. O’Neal was arrested this weekend.
Around 1:40 p.m. on Friday, Wright was in the Family Dollar store at 5410 W. Chicago Ave. when O’Neal approached and shot him numerous times, according to police. Wright was sent to Stroger Hospital in Cook County, where he was pronounced dead.
“He was simply at the store, doing his job, when his life was tragically taken from him,” said Snelling.
Police claimed a tip helped them identify O’Neal as the gunman and hunt him down in Dolton. Detectives also collected surveillance video footage of O’Neal in the vicinity of the shooting.
“They did surveillance knowing that they were coming in contact with a very, very violent offender,” Snelling went on to say.
Antoinette Ursitti, Chief of Detectives, stated that O’Neal was a former security guard at the Family Dollar shop and may have had a previous altercation with Wright.
O’Neal was apprehended in south suburban Dolton on Saturday following a gunfight with police. No one was shot, but according to a police report, O’Neal bit an officer on the arm while being arrested, punched another officer in the head and face, and spit in the face and eyes of a third officer.
In addition to the murder charges in Wright’s death, O’Neal faces additional counts of aggravated violence against a police officer, resisting or obstructing a police officer, and attempted murder in connection with the Dolton firefight.
At the time of his arrest, O’Neal was also sought on an attempted murder warrant in west suburban Forest Park, according to police. He is suspected of shooting staff at a Thornton’s gas station.
Snelling stated the cops removed a very violent guy from the streets.
“There’s no doubt in my mind – if the Chicago Police Department, the detective division, had not acted so swiftly, this individual would have acted out viciously again, and we would have more victims,” he said.
O’Neal has a significant criminal history. In May of last year, he was accused of pointing a pistol at someone, possessing a firearm without a Concealed Carry permit, and resisting arrest.
O’Neal was denied pretrial release at a court hearing on Tuesday and was scheduled to appear in court again on Friday.
According to CBS 2, O’Neal did not appear in court Tuesday because he is still in the hospital.