Slain student's parents on daughter's killing

Sheridan Gorman was an 18-year-old freshman at Loyola University Chicago. She was filled with promise and pep. She was her parents' joy. No one should have to deal with the police coming to your door at 6:00 AM, falling to your knees when you hear the news that no parent should ever hear. There's nothing that prepares you for going to the medical examiner's office and filling out the paperwork. Your hand is trembling, and then you have to go identify your daughter's body. And they ask if you're ready, and nothing makes you ready for that.

On March 19, Gorman and her friends went to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights on Lake Michigan at around 1:30 AM. They were just about a block and a half from campus, but as Gorman reached the end of this pier, she encountered a masked gunman.

He moved towards her threateningly. She turned around, and she warned her friends that there was a man with a gun, and you need to run. And they ran. She ran. She made it, like-- 40 feet. But she made it like 40, and he shot her in the back, came out her neck. She saved her friends. I don't know. Presumably. I mean, we heard that. They say it was a senseless tragedy. It wasn't. It was a murder. It was a preventable murder.

Police arrested 26-year-old Jose Medina, a Venezuelan who authorities say entered the country illegally. His lawyer says her client lost a portion of his brain and skull after he was robbed and shot in the head in Colombia in 2018. Lawyers said he had the mental capacity of a child. He had the mental capacity and the wherewithal to buy a gun, to have a mask on, and to be waiting. The mask was on, and he had a gun pointed at my daughter when she passed. A child does not do that. A man does not-- Shoot a retreating child in the back.

The Department of Homeland Security says Medina was first apprehended by US Border Patrol in May of 2023 and released into the country under the Biden administration. And just over a month later, they say he was caught shoplifting in Chicago, arrested, and released again. An arrest warrant was issued after he didn't show up for court. Tell me about the policies that you think made this happen. Honestly, we're really still trying to explore that. Clearly, there needs to be some cooperation between state and local government and federal officials. When someone commits a crime and they've been here illegally, there needs to be cooperation. He was arrested for, yes, a nonviolent crime, but he also was here illegally. In our mind, he should have been handed over to the Feds at that point.

The Trump administration has used Gorman's death to push for a tougher stance on immigration. And while Gorman's parents say they don't want their daughter's death to be about politics, they do want accountability.

I don't know what the longevity of this effort takes, but I will never rest. And yes, they've awakened a bear. They've awakened a big grizzly mama bear. I got to fight for my child. I have to fight for yours. I have to turn this devastating darkness into light somehow. Oh, my goodness, the pain these parents are experiencing. I mean, you can just feel it. Matt, do we know anything about this person, this perpetrator? Why they may have been doing this? Mental health issues? Was this just random? We don't know, yet. He appeared on the pier. Why he was on the pier at 1:30 AM wearing a balaclava-- one of those ski masks-- and had a loaded gun is unclear. What he was doing, who he was looking for, we don't yet know. What we do know is that his attorneys have said that he really does have the mental capacity of a child. On the other hand, as you heard the Gorman's say, well, he was able to find a gun, purchase a gun, and use it. So this is a very thorny question, and I think that the kind of policies that they are hoping for are the kind of policies that many Americans want to see. Something that's common sense, that's pro-immigration, but done properly and anti-allowing people who might hurt our children into the country. It's a very fine line to thread.

There were two things that struck me from her father, what he said to you. Number one, having to identify your child. No parent wants to. It's an unnatural order of the way life is supposed to work. Parents are not supposed to bury their children. We bury our parents. That's just the natural order of things, so I cannot imagine that. And then what he also said, which he wants state and local governments to work. It doesn't matter what political affiliation, what party you're in, both parties, both state and local officials have to work together to ensure that people like that are not either allowed to enter into the country, or if they are, sent back to where they belong. Exactly. Obviously, it's harder said than done, right? We don't have the capacity right now. And I think some of the efforts to try to make that happen have backfired on the administration.

Do they blame the immigration system, or do they blame porous gun laws? Both. The thing is that their pain was so raw that they haven't been able to pinpoint the exact policies they want to see changed. They just know that person should not have been in the country. And even after he had been in the country, he should have been arrested, and he should have remained in detention and/or deported. That didn't happen. He should have been somewhere where he could get help and not be on street. Crazy to think that he was behind bars and he was detained, but then he was released and-- Twice. --that is what, I think-- Yeah. People slip through the system, No doubt. It has happened since the founding of this country. But once you identify that this person is potentially here illegally and perhaps, has an issue that may make them-- it's just, I can't-- It's senseless, which is why we're all sitting here trying to find some kind of-- And they're grasping of a way, as she said, to try to bring light to something that is so absolutely, devastatingly dark. And the way they're doing it is to try to hope to change some policy. But just the raw emotion and pain that I saw reflecting in their eyes is something I won't forget.

Thank you for sharing their story. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Matt, as always.