JOLIET, IL — A resident of the 200 block of Joliet's Davis Street on the city's southeast side, 44-year-old Mario Guerrero was carrying two 24-packs of bottled water from his driveway back to his house when he became the eighth of nine Joliet shooting victims on Sunday, Jan. 21, 2024. Guerrero is the only survivor, and on Wednesday morning, he took the witness stand during the second day of the Joliet first-degree murder trial for Shorewood 27-year-old Jon Hansen.
Hansen, the childhood pal of Romeo Nance, met up with Nance hours after Nance slaughtered his entire family inside their two houses on Joliet's West Acres Road. Nance ultimately fled to Texas, where police said he took his own life after the police had him surrounded at a small-town gas station.
Prosecutors maintain that Hansen — not Nance — was likely responsible for the two additional Sunday afternoon shootings that took the life of innocent 28-year-old immigrant Toyosi Bakare of Nigeria, who was gunned down at the Pheasant Run apartments in Preston Heights, and the non-fatal shooting of Guerrero on Davis Street.
Prosecutors showed the jury video surveillance footage from a neighbor's camera of the drive-by shooting that injured Guerrero. The jury also saw photos of Guerrero's gunshot wound as well as photos of him lying in a hospital bed after being shot in his upper left leg above his knee. The jury saw the gunshot holes left inside two of Guerrero's vehicles parked in his driveway and another bullet hole that entered his detached garage.
Prosecutor Alexandra Molesky asked the questions of her witness. Guerreo testified he wore gray sweatpants and a Chicago Bulls black and red sweater that winter day, with the number 23 on it for Michael Jordan.
The surveillance video from the neighbors showed Guerrero unloading the packages of water bottles from the trunk of his vehicle parked along the street when a maroon car suddenly appears in the video.
Guerrero testified the driver was a young black man who concealed most, but not all, of his face with a ski mask. He said the passenger wore a cap and looked to be white, or "have clear skin."
A Spanish-language interpreter sat with Guerrero at the witness stand in the courtroom of Judge Jessica Colon-Sayre because Guerrero told the courtroom he does not speak English. That's exactly what he told Nance and Hansen as the two pulled up and began screaming and yelling as he was unloading the groceries, he testified.
"They began talking loudly next to me and that I told him no English," Guerrero testified. "Some seconds passed by, and all of a sudden they left."
But after the maroon car sped down the street, it turned around at the street corner and came back and stopped in front of his driveway, he testified.
Someone in that maroon car yelled at Guerrero "Stop!" and that's when a hail of gunfire erupted that Sunday afternoon just before the sun went down.
Guerrero testified he hid behind some of his vehicles, and he dropped the water bottle packages in his driveway. As he tried to enter his house, he realized he suffered a gunshot.
The jurors saw photos of Guerrero's damaged cell phone. He had the phone inside his left pants leg pocket; the bullet managed to penetrate his cell phone before striking his left leg just above his knee.
"I yelled to my wife to help," Guerrero testified during Wednesday's murder trial in Courtroom 502. "I dropped the waters and hid behind the car. I was by the entrance to my house. I ran, then the shots started. I just ran because the shots were to my back."
Prosecutor Molesky asked her witness to describe what happened to him.
"I felt I had a gunshot in my leg," he testified, according to the Spanish language interpreter.
After being hospitalized, Guerrero said he used crutches for about two weeks. He did not need surgery to treat his gunshot wound.
"They gave me medication," he testified. "They just cured it."
Prosecutors told the jury during the start of the trial, on Tuesday, that Hansen — not Nance — likely carried out the last two Joliet drive-by shootings from Jan. 21, 2024. Hansen woke up that morning and began texting Nance and his inner circle of friends, claiming that he wanted to shoot up the Vice Lords, the jury heard. Prosecutors say that Guerrero and Nigerian immigrant Toyosi Bakare, 28, were both mistaken as being Vice Lords simply because they wore red and black clothing.
A few days after the shooting, Will County Sheriff's detectives visited with Guerrero at his house and showed him several mugshots on a computer screen. However, he was unable to positively identify any of them as being the gunman who shot him, according to his trial testimony.
"You didn't see the driver do it?" asked defense attorney Anna Rose Bertani.
"No. No. " he answered.
"And you didn't see the passenger do it?
"No."
"And the driver of the vehicle was closer to you?"
"Yeah."
"So you didn't see who shot you?"
"No, I didn't see."
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