Portage Park nightclub shut down by police in wake of deadly mass shooting
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago Police have shut down Vera's Lounge, the Portage Park nightclub where three people were killed and another was critically wounded in a shooting early Sunday.
Police Supt. David Brown issued the summary closure order for Vera's Lounge, at 3235 N. Central Av., after deeming the nightclub poses a threat to public safety due to the shooting just outside the club. The order requires the lounge to remain closed until further notice.
Vera's owners can now ask for a probable cause hearing in front of Mayor Lori Lightfoot to determine whether the club is a public safety risk and should remain closed.
The shooting was captured on video, following a fight inside the club, which was hosting a birthday party for the owner's niece.
Police said an argument inside the bar turned into a fight that spilled outside in the street, and that was when 32-year-old Samuel Parsons-Salas shot four people, and fled in a dark-colored sport-utility vehicle. Parsons-Salas has been charged with three counts of first-degree murder, one count of attempted murder and one count of kidnapping related to the early Sunday shooting.
Surveillance video obtained by CBS Chicago from early Sunday morning shows the quarrel that spilled outside of the Vera Lounge. We have agreed not to air that video again, to protect the identity of the person who provided the footage.
For television, we stopped the video before the three victims were shot and killed at close range. Three died, and the gunman then went back to shoot them again.
Ricky Vera, 50, whose brother owns the bar, was shot in the head and chest and was pronounced dead on the scene. Mariah Vera, 25, his daughter, was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the head, and was listed in critical condition.
Two of Maria's friends, Mario Pozuelos, 26, of Franklin Park, and Mercedes Tavares, 24, of Chicago Heights, were taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital with multiple gunshot wounds to the body. Both were pronounced dead.
Police said Parsons-Salas admitted to the shootings and apologized for killing one of the victims who was hiding behind a car.
In court on Wednesday, prosecutors said the incident started at around 2:20 a.m. on Sunday when someone hit Mariah Vera, 25, whose birthday was being celebrated at the party. Her father Ricky Vera, 50, approached Parsons-Salas outside asking who hit his daughter.
Then Parsons-Salas retrieved a gun from a car and shot Ricky Vera in the head and chest, killing him. The suspect then fatally shot family friend Mario Pozuelos, 26, who was standing nearby.
He also shot Mariah Vera as she was kneeling over her wounded father and rendering aid to him. Mariah was hit in the head and is in critical condition with bone fragments in her brain.
Prosecutors added how Parsons-Salas then noticed Mercedes Tavares, who was hiding behind a nearby white van. He approached her and shot her at close range. As she lay shot on the sidewalk, the suspect stood over her and shot her again.
Police said Parsons-Salas fled in another vehicle with another person inside. On Wednesday, prosecutors said that person was Parsons-Salas' girlfriend of two weeks. She ran into a car when he started shooting. Parsons-Salas then got into the car, pointed a gun at her head and told her to drive. She tried to crash the car in hopes of escaping but Parsons-Salas told her to keep driving. They made it to an apartment where he also threatened her if she tried to call anyone.
This is the source of the kidnapping charge.
Parsons-Salas was released on parole in September of this year, stemming from a September 2009 armed home invasion that left two people dead in the Albany Park neighborhood. Angelina Escobar and her fiancé, Alex Santiago, were shot and killed in that 2009 home invasion and robbery in the 3500 block of West Sunnyside Avenue.
He was charged in that crime in 2014. Another defendant, Christopher Doehring, is serving a life sentence for pulling the trigger.
The next year, Parsons-Salas was charged with assaulting a jail guard.
Court records show Parsons-Salas pleaded guilty in 2018 to two charges after a plea deal related to the 2009 incident. He was sentenced to eight years in prison, but got credit for four years and eight months already served. Prosecutors could not say why he received the plea deal.
The Illinois Department of Corrections said Parsons-Salas wasn't "granted parole," but was out on supervised release at the time of this past weekend's homicides because his sentence for the home invasion was up. Illinois abolished its parole system in 1978 and replaced it with mandatory supervised release, which only begins after convicted criminals have completed their prison sentence.
A GoFundMe has been set up for funeral and medical expenses for the Vera family.
A GoFundMe has also been set up for the family of Tavares, the mother of three babies.
