Federal prosecutors have charged two alleged gang members with the 2021 murder of a teenage National Guardsman after state prosecutors in Chicago, notoriously soft on crime, declined to bring charges.
Gary Robertson, 40, and Joseph Matos, 41, were arrested on suspicion of shooting and killing 19-year-old Chris Carabajal from a drive-by shooting on July 3, 2021, with the intent to advance their ranks in the Milwaukee Kings street gang. According to a recently unsealed indictment.
According to the US Attorney’s Office, the two suspects were charged with racketeering and firearms violations in Carabajal’s murder.
Matos was identified as a suspect shortly after the fatal shooting, but Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx argued there was insufficient evidence to bring murder charges against him, despite desperate pleas from the dead boy’s family.
“How many more lives need to be taken before we do the right thing?” Carbajal’s sister, Jennifer Ramirez, said at the time, demanding “justice.” The Chicago Sun-Times reported..
“We live in a war zone and no one seems to be there to protect us.”
Carabajal, a week shy of his 20th birthday, was shot and killed while retrieving something from a car during a pre-Fourth of July party. Police said at the time that he was found lying on the sidewalk with bullets in his back and abdomen.
“My brother’s life was taken by a coward,” his sister said at the time.
“This coward didn’t know my brother. He never even spoke to my brother. He just saw an opportunity to kill someone and he did it with no remorse whatsoever,” she said.
Her brother had just finished basic training and was “working to become a police officer. He told WTTW A year after he was murdered.
“He was trying to serve and protect your city. The least you can do is bring justice.”
Fox said the evidence was “insufficient to meet the burden of proof to bring a murder charge,” a spokesman for his office said. He told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“As prosecutors, we have an ethical and legal obligation to make charging decisions based on the evidence, the facts and the law,” the spokesman said.
Roberson was arrested last month and has pleaded not guilty to the charges. He is being held in federal custody pending trial, according to the indictment.
Matos is not in custody, but a warrant has been issued for his arrest.
The indictments against Roberson and Matos do not include additional details about the shooting.
According to the indictment, the Milwaukee Kings crime organization operated on Chicago’s north side and engaged in drug trafficking and other violent acts, including murder, to maintain power over its territory.
