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JOLIET, IL—On the same weekend as the one-year anniversary of Joliet’s worst mass shooting in recent memory, Sergio Hernandez, A member of the Joliet Latin King street gang died over the weekend after he passed out at a backyard party on East Jackson Street in Joliet Township. He was 20 years old.
Joliet Patch previously reported that Hernandez was the target of the shooting by rival Vice Lord gang members at a Halloween party, according to Will County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Dan Jungles.
On Monday morning, downtown Joliet private practice attorney Chuck Bretz of Flynn & Associates confirmed to Joliet Patch that he learned of his client’s death over the weekend. Hernandez died in DuPage County.
“Just heard,” replied Bretz to the editor of the Joliet Patch. “We are deeply saddened to hear of his passing and our prayers are with his family and loved ones.”
Last October, Hernandez was free after posting bond in March 2021 on gun charges stemming from a February 2021 daytime drive-by shooting.
On Oct. 30, 2021, a Saturday night, Hernandez attended a backyard Halloween party at 1018 East Jackson St. that grew out of control and attracted more than 200 people.
According to Will County Sheriff’s officials, just after midnight, several deputies opened fire on Hernandez, who suffered multiple gunshot wounds.
Hernandez was poor in shooting. The backyard house party shooting left 10 people injured and the murder victims, 22-year-old Holly Matthews and Jonathan Ceballos, died at the scene.
In April, Bretts told Joliet Patch that the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office did not want to continue efforts to prosecute Hernandez for the Joliet drive-by shooting beginning in February 2021.
As of this April, Hernandez had been in a hospital bed for more than five months.
“He’s in bad shape,” Bretz told Patch at the time. “He’s a quadriplegic and relies on a ventilator to breathe.”
In an article published this past weekend — hours before the Latin King gang member’s death — the Joliet Patch reported how “the Halloween party shooting would not have happened if not for the presence of Joliet teenager Sergio Hernandez.”
“He was the intended target,” Jungles told Joliet Patch’s editor on Saturday.
Hernandez was a member of the Latin Kings street gang, and three other youths have now committed multiple murders, with Joskar Ramos and the Lopez brothers, Thomas and Jeremy, as vice lords, Jungles says.
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