Nearly five years after a fatal shooting outside a River North nightclub, Chicago police say they have identified and arrested a suspect in the case. Rashawn Ward, 31, was taken into custody Tuesday and now faces one count of first-degree murder and one count of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon in the Sept. 18, 2021, killing of Royal Shorts, a 33-year-old man from Hammond, Indiana. Shorts was shot on the 800 block of North Orleans Street, and Ward is scheduled to appear for a detention hearing today in Cook County court.
Ward was arrested without incident by Chicago police and the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force on the 1700 block of North Spaulding Avenue, according to FOX 32 Chicago, which reported that he lists an address on the 200 block of North Lamon Avenue. Investigators identified Ward as the person responsible for the shooting, police said, though the investigation remains open. Shorts was standing near his own parked vehicle around 3:50 a.m. outside the LiqrBox nightclub at 873 North Orleans Street when a gunman inside a blue Volkswagen SUV opened fire, according to CWB Chicago.
A Blue SUV, Seven Shots, and a Death Outside LiqrBox
The gunman struck Shorts multiple times before fleeing, and officers recovered seven shell casings at the scene, the outlet’s report noted. Shorts later died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. It remains unclear whether the blue Volkswagen SUV described in the original police alert was ever recovered or tied to Ward, a detail that hasn’t been addressed in available reporting.
Less than three weeks after Shorts was killed, another vehicle-based shooting struck roughly 100 feet away on the 900 block of North Orleans, wounding an Uber driver and two 15-year-old boys, the same outlet reported. That attack underscored safety concerns residents and businesses had already raised about late-night nightlife crowds along the Orleans Street corridor.
No Cash Bail, But a High Bar to Release
Ward’s detention hearing will unfold under Illinois’s Pretrial Fairness Act, which eliminated cash bail statewide in September 2023. For non-probationable forcible felonies like first-degree murder, the law requires prosecutors to prove by clear and convincing evidence that a defendant poses a specific safety threat or flight risk before a judge can order someone held pending trial, according to Illinois Legal Aid Online…