Parolee Shot Man In Back In Howard Street CTA Station: Prosecutor

CHICAGO — A Chicago man has been charged with first-degree murder in last week's fatal shooting at the Howard Street CTA station. Prosecutors said he shot a 20-year-old man in the back after chasing him and his girlfriend down inside the station on the afternoon of Dec. 3.

Keith Gross, 30, of the 6600 block of South Greenwood Avenue, in Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood, was arrested Wednesday afternoon in the 9300 block of West Skokie Boulevard in Skokie after detectives identified him as the person who shot and killed Macksantino Webb, according to Chicago police.

At a bond hearing Thursday, Assistant State's Attorney James Murphy said Gross and three of his friends chased Webb, who they knew, and Webb's girlfriend into a stairwell leading to the CTA Red Line platform.

Prosecutors said the group caught up to Webb and his girlfriend, cornering them in a narrow stairway. The girlfriend punched one of Gross's friends, who then knocked her to the ground, the judge was told.

Gross then pulled out a gun and pointed it at Webb, who turned to run away, prosecutors said. As he did, Gross shot him twice in the back, the judge was told. Webb and his girlfriend managed to make it to the top of the platform, where he collapsed and died.

The incident was captured on surveillance video, and footage shows Gross running from the scene with a gun, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors said Gross identified himself on the video and admitted having the gun, which he allegedly told investigators he had purchased four days before Webb's death from a "Mexican dude" for $250 and dumped into a sewer in Evanston after the shooting.

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, Gross was released on parole in November 2018 following a 14-year sentence for a 2012 home invasion conviction. Records show he previously served time in state prison for a 2008 robbery conviction and a 2007 conviction for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. Prosecutors said he was found not guilty of murder in the same case.

Earlier: 20-Year-Old Fatally Shot On CTA Platform At Howard Street: Police

Macksantino Webb had moved from the South Side to live with his great-uncle Rev. Zollie Webb, the pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Evanston and a leader of Evanston Own It. In a social media post two days after the killing, the pastor said his grand-nephew's 2-month-old daughter would never have a chance to know her father.

"I am hurting to help plan his funeral and preach his final service and eulogy. How many times do we have to walk behind caskets of young black men," he asked, "before they realize that their deaths are a waste of talent and energy?"

Pastor Webb, a Rogers Park resident, was profiled by the Chicago Sun-Times in a 2016 report describing how the pastor would take in teenage relatives from dangerous South Side neighbor. Then 17-year-old Macksantino Webb and his brother recalled being shot at on multiple occasions, including one that left his 18-year-old cousin dead.

"Somebody just got to shooting out of nowhere," he told the paper three years before his death. "We're taking cover under some bricks."

In the wake of last week's fatal shooting, Chicago police arrested an 18-year-old Rogers Park man on suspicion of illegally possessing a weapon in connection with the shooting. Prosecutors said he was seen running into a nearby grocery store and hiding a backpack with a gun in it, according to the Sun-Times. But the teen was not charged in the murder, and a judge said prosecutors had not provided any evidence linking him to the shooting before allowing him to be released with a $1,000 bond.

"I'm really sick and tired of having to bury young people too soon. This is not the first nephew I've lost via gun violence," Zollie Webb said in a video accompanying an online fundraiser to help cover the cost of his great-nephew's funeral. "I'm just simply tired."