Juan Alberto Mendez-Ramos, 39, was shot dead in the first minutes of September 3, 2018, while at a backyard gathering in the 5000 block of West 30th Street in Cicero. Officers found him with a single gunshot wound to the upper chest; he was taken to Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood and pronounced dead at 12:30 a.m. The Cook County medical examiner ruled the death a homicide. Public reports noted he lived in Momence in Kankakee County, and friends and family had traveled to the late-summer party where the shooting occurred.

Investigators quickly focused on a man who had been at the same gathering. Testimony later described the victim sitting with a friend when 25-year-old Alejandro Carrillo approached, upset over the victim’s relationship with Carrillo’s aunt; Carrillo then produced a loaded handgun, fired once from a few steps away, and set the weapon down as others moved to secure it. Carrillo was arrested, charged with first-degree murder, and a judge set bond at $3 million. The court later found Carrillo guilty and sentenced him to 45 years in prison after a bench trial; an appellate panel affirmed the conviction in 2021.