Sheridan Gorman’s Family Condemns Pritzker’s Callous Comments: ‘Not Enough’

The family of Sheridan Gorman, the 18-year-old Loyola University Chicago freshman who was fatally shot by an illegal alien in an unprovoked attack, condemned Illinois Governor JB Pritzker over his callous response to the brutal murder.

The family rejected the officials’ framing of the killing as a “senseless tragedy” or a national immigration failure that could be blamed elsewhere, insisting instead on direct accountability for systemic breakdowns that allowed the alleged killer to remain free in Chicago.

“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. She should be here,” the family declared in a statement on Wednesday.

“Calling this ‘senseless’ is not enough. There must be a clear and honest accounting of what went wrong. 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,” they added.

The family then addressed Prtizker directly, who attempted to politicize the situation by blaming President Donald Trump and calling for “comprehensive immigration reform,” which, in his view, would include amnesty for millions of illegal aliens. “Sheridan’s death cannot be reduced to a general ‘tragedy,’ nor can it be explained away by broad references to failures somewhere else,” they said.

Gorman’s family added that they had no interest in political arguments or blame-shifting on the part of Pritzker. “If there were failures — as the Governor himself has acknowledged — then every one of them must be identified, examined, and addressed directly.”

In an earlier statement, the parents expressed being “gravely disappointed by the policies and failures that allowed this individual to remain in a position to commit this crime. When systems fail — whether through release decisions, lack of coordination, or unwillingness to act — the consequences are not abstract. They are real. And in our case, they are permanent.”

Sheridan Gorman

Gorman, a native of Yorktown Heights, New York, was killed around 1 a.m. on March 19 while walking with friends along the lakefront near Loyola’s Rogers Park campus at Tobey Prinz Beach.

According to prosecutors, 25-year-old Jose Medina, a Venezuelan national in the U.S. illegally, emerged from hiding near the pier or lighthouse area and fired multiple shots in the group’s direction. Gorman was struck in the back and was ultimately pronounced dead at the scene.

Medina’s immigration history has been the subject of intense scrutiny in the aftermath of the unprovoked killing. In May 2023, he was apprehended by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) but was later freed under the Biden Administration’s “catch and release” policies. He was then arrested for shoplifting in Chicago a month later, at which point he was released once again, this time by local prosecutors.

An ICE detainer was then lodged against him, but he failed to appear in court, leaving an active warrant. Chicago’s Welcoming City ordinance and Illinois’ TRUST Act limit local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement in many cases.

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