Nordstrom shooter slugged ex-girlfriend’s friend 6 days earlier, sources say

The man who gunned down his ex-girlfriend in the Michigan Avenue Nordstrom on Black Friday allegedly slugged one of her best friends six days earlier as she watched, sources said.

By the time Marcus Dee, 31, opened fire in the downtown department store on one of the busiest shopping days of the year, Chicago detectives had begun to arrange a photo lineup so they could secure an arrest warrant for Dee for the alleged Nov. 22 punch, a police spokesman said Tuesday.

The details surfaced one day after Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy acknowledged that Dee had been involved in an “incident” the week before the shooting.

He pointed to the incident as proof that 22-year-old Nadia Ezaldein was not afraid to report Dee to authorities because his parents are Chicago Police officers. He also said investigators were trying to determine if the shooting could have been prevented.

Police spokesman Martin Maloney said Dee’s parents did “absolutely nothing to intervene” after their son was accused of punching Ezaldein’s friend.

And Ezaldein’s sister, who asked that her name not be used, told the Chicago Sun-Times “the cops were definitely doing their job.”

She said she simply thinks Dee’s parents were in the dark.

“I don’t think they knew a lot about their son,” she said Tuesday.

The alleged attack happened about 4 a.m. Nov. 22 at a party in a warehouse in the 2000 block of West Walnut, according to a police source.

That’s when Dee allegedly walked up to the victim, who was with Ezaldein, and punched him in the right side of his face, the source said.

Ezaldein’s sister said the man Dee hit was one of Ezaldein’s best friends from the University of Chicago, where she had gone to school. The source said Ezaldein took the man to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where doctors determined the bones around his right eye had been broken.

The man’s brother, who also asked that his name not be used, said his brother suffered a concussion. He said his brother left the hospital later that day.

The victim reported the attack on Nov. 23, according to a police source who said Dee was initially misidentified in reports as “Marcus Lee.”

But Maloney said the detective assigned to the case contacted the victim and clarified Dee’s name. That detective also reclassified the case to an aggravated battery, Maloney said.

A source said it was originally classified as a simple battery.

“The detective was in the process of arranging a photo lineup for the victim so that an arrest warrant could be issued,” Maloney said.

But on Friday, Dee walked into the accessories department of Nordstrom where Ezaldein worked and fatally shot her before taking his own life. It was Ezaldein’s birthday.

Dee’s sister told the Sun-Times the couple had broken up just two weeks earlier. She described her brother as “caring” and “wonderful,” acknowledged he had a temper but said the couple had been “very, very much in love.”

Ezaldein’s family painted a very different picture. They said the couple had broken up in December 2013 but Dee had continued to abuse her and subjected her to “months and months of psychological torment” before killing her.

Ezaldein’s sister has also accused Dee in court records of cracking Ezaldein’s ribs, breaking her jaw and putting a gun in her mouth.

Another woman who asked that her name not be used said she experienced similar psychological abuse while dating Dee for three months in 2007. She initially sought an order of protection against him that year but ultimately decided not to pursue it.