‘Heinous, inexplicable’: Charges filed in shooting deaths of 4 people sleeping on Chicago commuter train

CHICAGO — Cook County prosecutors have charged one person with murder after four people were shot to death Monday as they slept on a train at the Forest Park Blue Line station, an early morning attack that ranks among the worst acts of violence in memory on the CTA system.

According to Forest Park police, Cook County prosecutors approved charges of four counts of first-degree murder against Rhianni Davis, 30, police said.

At a press briefing late Tuesday, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx called the shootings a “horrific, heinous, inexplicable act of violence.”

Foxx did not immediately offer evidence of a motive in the case.

“There is an absolute urgent need to address safety in our communities,” she said. “Public transportation should be a safe space for everyone.”

A review of Cook County court records showed Davis has faced financial hardship and housing instability while keeping steady contact with local police, including at least two arrests for illegal gun possession, one occurring at a Metra train station in the south suburbs.

Records show Davis was charged with disorderly conduct after a round of looting and rioting in the downtown area in August 2020. Davis eventually pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one day in jail.

Court records show Davis was arrested at a Metra train station in south suburban Blue Island in 2019 and charged with illegal possession of a firearm and having an open container. Davis was arrested again in 2021 and charged with unlawful possession of a weapon — allegedly a Taurus pistol and a magazine of ammunition — following a car crash on the Southwest Side.

Records show Davis filed for bankruptcy in 2018 and, four years later, faced an eviction lawsuit. Several addresses on the South Side and south suburbs, as well as one in Nashville, are listed in Davis’ various arrest reports.

Earlier Tuesday, the medical examiner’s office released names for two of the four people killed Monday at the station, as officials called attention to safety and security issues on city trains that have long frustrated riders.

Forest Park police were dispatched to the village’s Blue Line station just before 5:30 a.m. Monday after someone called 911 to report that three people were shot on a train car. Three victims were pronounced dead at the scene, while a fourth died at Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood, police said in a news release.

Sixty-year-old Adrian Collins died of a gunshot wound to the abdomen, an autopsy found, while Simeon Bihesi, 28, died of multiple gunshots. Identities for the other two victims were not yet released.

All four deaths were ruled homicides.

Chicago police officers took Davis into custody a short time later on a CTA Pink Line train — authorities didn’t say where the train was — and a weapon was recovered, according to Forest Park police.

In a statement Monday, CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. called the shooting the “definition of a heinous crime and tragedy” and said all current information points to it being an isolated incident.

At the Tuesday evening press conference, Carter said: “We hear you and we understand your concerns about safety.”

The shooting was the first multi-victim homicide to occur on a CTA train in at least 30 years, according to available city violence data, and it was the first fatal shooting of the year on a CTA train or at a station. One other homicide occurred in January at the Roosevelt station in the South Loop, records show.

Hours after the shooting, Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins called the violence “an outlier,” but added that the village’s first responders are frequently dispatched to the Blue Line station. Hoskins also called for more safety resources at the station as part of any potential reorganization of local mass transit agencies.

“To the extent that our leaders in Springfield are considering any kind of CTA-mass transit reorganization, we would ask them to consider investing additional resources in terms of safety, public safety, law enforcement personnel, what have you, to support a small community like Forest Park that has to respond to two major train lines ending in Forest Park,” Hoskins said.

During a press briefing Monday, Hoskins said the four people killed had been sleeping on the train. The housing status of the victims remained unknown, but advocates pointed out the risks to people who shelter on trains and called for a “whole continuum of services” to address the city’s homelessness problem.

“It’s a vulnerable situation if your existence is riding a train and all you have is one or two bags that are all your worldly possessions,” said David Wywialowski, director of health outreach at The Night Ministry, which does homelessness outreach at Blue and Red line terminals.

People without homes may opt to sleep on public transit because “it’s a place they feel safer relative to a host of bad options in front of them,” said Chicago Coalition for the Homeless Executive Director Doug Schenkelberg, noting that some people may feel unsafe in shelters or that a particular facility’s rules don’t work for them. Advocates said trains also offer shelter from the weather and have surveillance cameras and lights.

Chicago has historically taken a housing-first approach to getting people off the streets. Schenkelberg called for increases in funding for permanent housing, but also street outreach and “the whole continuum of services that need to be in place” to address homelessness. A review of Cook County court records showed Davis has faced financial hardship, housing instability while keeping steady contact with local police throughout his adult life, including at least two arrests for illegal gun possession, one occurring at a Metra train station in the south suburbs.

Outreach workers at the train stations help connect people with food and resources while also stressing safety practices, such as looking out for each other and staying in small groups, Wywialowski said.

“What is the heart and soul of Chicago and what it means to be a Chicagoan? Do we care about people and want to support them or are we OK walking past them and allowing them to suffer on a curbside?” Wywialowski said. “I believe in the Chicago that has a good heart and soul and wants to help its most vulnerable citizens.”

In a statement, the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless called the slayings “a glaring example of a pattern of violence, suffering, and cruelty people experiencing homelessness face every day.”

“We cannot write this moment off as a tragic, isolated incident, but must acknowledge it is the direct result of … systemic failures,” the statement said.

The high-profile tragedy along a major Chicago-area transit line comes as the Illinois General Assembly continues to mull what transit in the region could look like in the future, including whether the CTA should be consolidated with Metra and Pace into one agency and how to address a transit fiscal cliff expected when federal pandemic aid runs out, which could be as soon as 2025.

The region’s transit agencies face a combined $730 million budget hole and the agencies have warned that failure to plug the hole could lead to catastrophic service cuts and fare increases.

But at an unrelated event on Tuesday, Gov. JB Pritzker said “the broader question” of why isn’t there enough security being provided on the CTA needs to be addressed.

“And of course Springfield is going to be a very important part of that. We’re not the only funder or the only available partner in that but certainly we’re trying to put together a plan that will make sense for the future and that will keep people safe on public transit,” said Pritzker. “But we’ve got to make sure we can afford to not just to make our current system operate the way it should but also build it because we need more, not less, public transit.”

In recent months, there’s been a series of hearings held by the Illinois Senate’s Transportation Committee over ways to improve the Chicago-area transit systems in light of a possible fiscal cliff. On Tuesday, state Sen. Ram Villivalam, a Chicago Democrat who heads the committee, said through the hearings “we’ve learned close to $100 million is being spent on safety throughout the CTA, Metra, Pace public transit systems.”

“How is it being spent? Is it working? Clearly not,” said Villivalam. “And the third piece is what can we do to improve? I look at having a holistic approach where we’re not having five or six different piecemeal entities trying to provide safety.”

“We need to make sure that safety is the number one priority for our public transit and accountability and transparency around that is incredibly important,” he said.

Villivalam also acknowledged that the embattled Carter, who’s faced intense criticism from people who think he’s running the transit agency inefficiently, needs to explain what happened Monday that led to the quadruple homicide.

“He has shown up to all four Senate Transportation Committee hearings that we’ve had throughout the RTA region. That being said, there’s no question that it’s going to be impossible for the Illinois General Assembly to vote for funding even if the service plans for improvement and expansion are presented properly,” said Villivalam. “Unless people are safe, unless they feel safe it’s not going to be something that the Illinois General Assembly is going to move forward with.”

The mass shooting occurred less than a week after the CTA announced an AI-based program that seeks to more quickly notify police when guns are detected at CTA train stations.

Asked on Tuesday if CTA’s new AI gun-detecting technology was used during the shooting or aftermath, or if the agency would be sending additional security guards to the area, the agency said only the AI technology is not available on trains, only in stations.

“Beyond that, we are unable to comment on the specifics of our security strategies, including locations equipped with (the AI) technology,” spokeswoman Catherine Hosinski said in a statement. “That said, we can say that each day, CTA’s Security Dept. works in close coordination with the Chicago Police Department, as well as suburban police departments within the CTA service region, to strategically deploy resources based on recent security data and information.”

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Chicago Tribune’s Sarah Freishtat contributed.