Drive-by shooting at CherryVale Mall kills one person
Rockford IL March 3 2018 — A man was fatally shot late Friday afternoon on the access road outside CherryVale Mall during what the Winnebago County sheriff called a “drive-behind” shooting.
The death is the fourth homicide this week in Winnebago County, Sheriff Gary Caruana said, with three occurring in the last two days in Rockford.
Cherry Valley police were called around 4 p.m. after shots were fired outside the mall. Officers found a man, believed to be between 25 and 30 years old, dead inside a dark-colored sport utility vehicle, which was parked slightly up an embankment near Schnucks grocery store. There were no other people in the vehicle and no one else is believed to have been injured, Caruana said.
“The shooter was in another vehicle. It looks like a drive-behind (shooting),” he said, noting the shooter was in a vehicle immediately behind the SUV.
The shooter remains at large. Caruana said sheriff’s detectives and Cherry Valley investigators have no description of the shooter, the vehicle that person was in or a license plate number.
“We don’t know what the motive is,” Caruana said.
Caruana said the mall was never closed or put on lockdown after the shooting.
Poplar Grove resident Dan Jensen, 27, said his father-in-law, who lives near the mall, 7200 Harrison Ave., was driving home Friday afternoon when he spotted the dark-colored SUV parked slightly up the grassy embankment.
“He saw a man sort of pacing back and forth. Disoriented. Confused, possibly,” said Jensen, a delivery driver. “He actually thought the guy was parked up there drying off his car. He didn’t know if he was cleaning off his car.”
He didn’t see blood on the man’s body.
Jensen, who visited his father-in-law after the shooting, said they believe the shooting occurred after his father-in-law saw the man.
There were two shootings in the mall parking lot within eight days in 2016, which led the mall to step up security measures. The two shootings occurred on mall property Sept. 30 and Oct. 8, 2016. No injuries were reported Sept. 30. A man in a wheelchair was shot once in the leg and once in the stomach on Oct. 8. His injuries were not life-threatening.
Anyone with information about Friday’s shooting is asked to call the Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department at 815-319-6000 and ask for the detective bureau, or Rockford Area Crime Stoppers at 815-963-7867.
