Man, 34, is arrested over shocking murder of young couple who were dragged from their car and executed during Puerto Rican Day Parade in Chicago last month
A 34-year-old man sought by police in the fatal shooting of a couple at a Puerto Rican culture celebration in Chicago has been arrested in California.
Anthony Lorenzi is charged with first-degree murder and is awaiting extradition to Illinois, police in Chicago said Saturday.
Yasmin Perez and her boyfriend Gyovanni Arzuaga died from injuries sustained during the brutal ambush last month.
Lorenzi was arrested Friday by U.S. marshals in the parking lot of an apartment complex in San Diego.
The attack unfolded during Chicago's Puerto Rican Day parade, which Perez and Arzuaga participated in, flying a large Puerto Rican flag from their vehicle.
Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said Saturday that investigators learned that Lorenzi fled to San Diego the morning after Arzuaga and Perez were shot June 19 following the parade in Chicago's Humboldt Park neighborhood.
The previously planned celebration happened to fall on June 19 this year, which days earlier had been declared a federal holiday celebrating the end of slavery in the U.S.
Though the motive in the attack was unclear, police said that the couple were involved in a minor car crash of some kind, and that a crowd surrounded their vehicle and attacked them.
Yasmin Perez and her boyfriend Gyovanni Arzuaga, who had two kids - Sofiya and Jaden - died from injuries sustained during the brutal ambush last month
Video of the shooting showed Perez being dragged by several people from a dark SUV with a Puerto Rican flag sticking out of a window.
Arzuaga, who was seen on the ground nearly covering her, was then shot in the head by a gunman in a white tank top. Perez died three days later.
Lorenzi, a career criminal with 26 felony arrests and seven convictions, is charged in Arzuaga's death. Perez may have been shot accidentally in the neck by Arzuaga, police have said.
The couple had two young children, a girl named Sofiya and Jaden, who turned a year at the end of last month, according to WFLD-TV.
'They first met each other at a party and it was over with from there. They fell in love with each other and they spent years together. They made a family together,' the couple's friend Jae Pacheco told the station.
Friends have launched a GoFundMe campaign to help support the couple's young children.
The attack unfolded during Chicago's Puerto Rican Day parade, which Perez and Arzuaga participated in, flying a large Puerto Rican flag from their vehicle
The attack occurred around 9.15pm near the 3200 block of West Division in Humboldt Park.
It came during a Juneteenth weekend of shocking violence in Chicago, with 38 shooting incidents, 54 shooting victims and eight murders from 6pm Friday to midnight on Sunday, according to police.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot had vowed to hunt down everyone involved in the 'horrific' shooting that left Perez and Arzuaga dead.
'You know who you are. People know who you are,' Lightfoot had said in a warning to the perpetrators.
The longtime couple met at a party years ago. 'They fell in love with each other and they spent years together,' a friend said
Lightfoot speculated that the attack 'started with a car accident' and vowed that the others involved in the attack would also be held accountable.
'As you saw from the horrific video, it wasn't just one person. There's one person who dealt the fatal shot,' the mayor said.
'But there were others who were standing by who dragged that poor woman out of the car. The man who was killed literally used his body as a shield and paid for that with his life,' the mayor said.
Mourners gather to remember the couple at a makeshift memorial at the location where both were shot during an altercation as they celebrated their Puerto Rican heritage last month
...imagine life before the mythical beast of civilization? Imagine no guns or their power to equalize, imagine no police, no laws, no courts... no justice. Kind of like today, but one thousand times worse, and without the political, cultural theater. Imagine the vile nature of humanity escaping that "Jar of Civilization"...and our lives revolving around survival of the fittest. It is coming. It will be genocide-level-violence....but instead of the brute force of rocks, knives, swords and swarms of men willing to die for their leader...this genocide will take place with guns, bombs, chemicals and bioweapons. Mankind's ability to brutalize one another is worse than nature's survival of the fittest, because those laws of nature cannot be altered. An old lion may still be able to beat their challengers, but they know there will be a day when the cannot win, and must submit or die. That is nature. But humanity's ability to reason, to process, to alter and deceive is a gateway to power for sociopaths. I feel sorry for my kids, grandkids and their peers. I have know what was coming for some time, and spent decades trying to point my family in a more informed direction. My efforts were for naught. I am sad for them. I worry about them. I hope that I am wrong, but I have not been wrong so far. I and my siblings are older but not old...and we have had a great life. We have lived our lives in relative freedom and liberty, but I fear our children will not. If this is the type of world we are leaving to our kids, I hope you have taught them to defend themselves...and fight back against gangsterism and tyranny.
ReplyDeleteWhy is there picture of the ape that did this? If he was white his pic would have been on their at least twice.
ReplyDeleteI lay ALL the blame at the clawed feet of Chiraq Warlord Lori Lightfoot.
ReplyDeleteRemove them from the gene pool.
ReplyDelete