Family of slain student Sheridan Gorman demands accountability from Chicago Dem Mayor Brandon Johnson

The family of a slain Chicago teen has called on Mayor Brandon Johnson and Governor JB Pritzker to take "accountability" for the sanctuary policies that resulted in the death of their daughter, 18-year-old Loyola University student Sheridan Gorman.

This comes after Mayor Johnson, a Democrat, reduced her death to a "senseless tragedy" and doubled down on his efforts to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from the city, just days after the cold-blooded killing. On March 19, Gorman was shot dead while walking with her friends in the Rogers Park neighborhood. Authorities identified the alleged killer as Jose Medina-Medina, an illegal immigrant from Venezuela.

"We acknowledge Mayor Johnson's statement five days after our daughter Sheridan's murder," the family said in a statement. "But what happened to Sheridan cannot be reduced to a 'senseless tragedy,' nor can it be explained in general terms about public safety."

"Sheridan was our daughter. She was 18 years old. She was doing something entirely normal—walking near her campus with friends," the family continued. "This was not random. It was not inevitable. And it cannot be treated as though it were. We appreciate the efforts of law enforcement in making an arrest. But safety is not defined by how quickly a case is solved after the fact. It is defined by whether a young woman like Sheridan is protected in the first place."

Gorman's family also slammed a Chicago lawmaker for claiming that Sheridan was just in the "wrong place at the wrong time." They called for a "clear and honest accounting of what went wrong" and asked for Johnson and Pritzker to take "accountability," saying that "the system failed" their daughter.

"We will not allow Sheridan's life to be reduced to a talking point or a generalization. We expect leadership that is willing to confront hard truths and ensure that what happened to her does not happen again," the family said. "We stand ready to engage with the Mayor and any public official willing to approach this with seriousness, transparency, and a commitment to real change."

On Tuesday, Gov. Pritzker blamed the Trump administration for Sheridan's death, claiming that the president "failed to follow his own edict to go after the worst of the worst." He called for Democrat-backed "comprehensive immigration reform," otherwise known by critics as open border policies.

But the family was not impressed. In a separate statement, they told the governor, "Our daughter is not a policy debate. She is a life that was taken, and that demands accountability."

Johnson expressed similar sentiments to Pritzker. The mayor on Tuesday attributed Gorman's death to the Trump administration's failure to address gun violence. This, despite the White House's numerous attempts last year to deploy the National Guard to address the violence in Chicago, which both Johnson and Pritzker opposed.

Medina-Medina was arrested at his apartment in Rogers Park after US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents identified him in the police database. The suspect told authorities that he previously lived at the taxpayer-funded shelter for migrants in 2023, called the Leone Beach Park fieldhouse, according to the arrest report. Records show that the shelter closed in 2024. ICE has lodged an immigration detainer.