Stabbing, Gunfire, Pistol-Whipping In Dempster Street Brawl: Cops

NILES, IL — A pair of recent Maine East High School graduates faces knife and firearm felonies stemming from an armed ambush outside a Niles apartment building earlier this month, authorities said.

Erik Palafox, 19, of the 8600 block of Gregory Lane, Des Plaines, and Jake McGannon, 18, of the 2200 block of Ottawa Street, Des Plaines, have each been charged with two counts of aggravated battery and two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, according to police and prosecutors.

Brandishing a gun and a knife, the two teens followed and attacked the ex-boyfriend of one of their sisters, an 18-year-old Niles man whom one of them had arranged to fight, authorities said.

Palafox had challenged him to the fight because he was upset about something the Niles teen had told Palafox's sibling, prosecutors said Friday at an initial court appearance in Skokie.

Assistant State's Attorney Rowland Edwards said Palafox and his sister's former romantic partner arranged to meet for a fight on Jan. 5.

That afternoon, the ex-boyfriend and six companions waited for several hours in a minivan outside Stevenson Elementary School, "eventually losing interest in the fight," Edwards said.

The group left the school in Des Plaines around 7 p.m. and headed to an apartment building in the 8400 block of West Dempster Street in Niles to look to visit a friend, according to the prosecutor.

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After one member of the group got out of the van to go looking for the friend, he was accosted by McGannon and Palafox. Both were masked and brandishing weapons, with McGannon holding a gun and Palafox armed with a knife, Edwards said.

The prosecutor said McGannon walked over to the driver's side of the minivan and knocked on the window with his gun before he and Palafox pulled the Niles teen out of the van and began fighting.

"At some point [Erik] Palafox cut [his sibling's ex] on the cheek and stabbed him in the chest and [Jake] McGannon fired the gun at the bottom of the minivan four times, striking the left front tire and the left side rear panel," Edwards said. "[The Niles resident] began wrestling with [Jake] McGannon over the gun and was able to get it away from him."

Turning the tables on his attacker, the Niles resident allegedly managed to beat Palafox with the gun several times after Palafox stabbed him.

As the teens heard sirens approach, McGannon pleaded with the man he is accused of attacking to give him the gun back, saying he would not shoot him, according to Edwards.

Officers found four spent shell casings at the scene and located video surveillance and cell phone information that shows McGannon and Palafox following the minivan from the arranged meeting spot, the state's attorney said.

The stabbing victim later showed up at an area hospital, according to Niles police. Police arrested the two Des Plaines teens on Jan. 11. The Cook County State's Attorney's Office approved felony charges against them on Friday, three days later.

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Donna Rotunno, Palafox's defense attorney, said the facts of the case were not as clear as the state's attorney had suggested. She told the judge at Palafox and McGannon's bond hearing that her client appeared to have been the first person injured in the incident.

"He obviously was injured, I think, more severely than the complaining witness in this," Rotunno said. "I do think that the series and sequence of events may be different once the facts come to fruition. I do think that there's a possible self-defense here."

Rotunno, best known for her work representing Harvey Weinstein, said that Palafox had been working full-time at Sherman Dodge in Skokie since graduation. She said his father was a longtime employee, and his boss had offered to help pay legal fees and cover his bond.

McGannon's attorney, David Studenroth, said his client had recently applied to join the U.S. Army and was awaiting approval of his physical and date of deployment. The Park Ridge-based lawyer acknowledged the serious nature of the charges but suggested the teen had not been attempting to kill anyone when he opened fire.

"While I'm not minimizing the fact that shots were fired," Studenroth said. "But it did appear as though they were fired at the tire of the van and the lower portion of the van."

Pointing to his client's lack of a criminal record, close ties to the community and family, Studenroth said McGannon's father, a 29-year veteran of the Park Ridge Police Department, had brought cash to the Skokie courthouse to post bond.

Cook County Associate Judge Anthony Calabrese set the cash portion of both men's bond at $10,000. He also ordered that they have no contact with witnesses or the men they are accused of attacking. Calabrese did not grant Edwards' request that the Des Plaines teens be placed on electronic monitoring.

"While the result of this incident is extraordinarily bad, certainly there's some issues regarding how these events played out that need to be determined in a court of law," Calabrese said. "I do believe, however, that a significant bond is substantial for each of the defendants, given the grave nature of the allegations, the discharge of the firearm as well as the cutting of a victim."