Authorities have released a man who was questioned by detectives after he fatally shot three people whom he claimed were breaking into his home Sunday evening in the East Side neighborhood on the Far South Side.
A police source said the 31-year-old man, who has a valid Firearm Owner’s Identification card, claimed he shot the three after they broke into his home.
Police, however, questioned the man following the shooting in an attempt to confirm that account.
“We have noticed inconsistencies in his story . . . we’re pressing pretty hard,” police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Monday morning of investigators who were interrogating the man.
Police were investigating the shooting as self-defense. Area South detectives were conducting the homicide investigation.
Under mounting pressure, the man hired an attorney Monday afternoon, Guglielmi said.
Guglielmi could not immediately say what kind of gun police recovered from the man. Asked if the alleged intruders were also armed, he replied: “We only recovered one weapon.”
As of Wednesday morning, the man had been released without charges, police said.
Narcisco J. Ledesman, 22, of North Austin; 17-year-old Antonio J. Lopez of East Chicago, Ind.; and 24-year-old Celeste Cockriel of Humboldt Park all suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the body at 5:30 p.m. in the 10200 block of South Ewing, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
All three were pronounced dead at the scene.
Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza’s 10th Ward office is about three blocks south of the home where the shooting occurred.
“Right now they’re calling it self-defense,” she said, noting that she’d received details about the shooting from the commander of the 4th District police station.
“I an understand people’s fear,” she said, relating to how the homeowner said he reacted after finding intruders inside his home.
The shooting happened on the same block as St. Francis de Sales High School and steps away from 103rd and Ewing, where a bus picks up students who attend Catholic schools in other parts of the city, according to one local resident.
