A alleged member of the Almighty Ambrose street gang charged with killing two men in a shooting last October in the Pilsen neighborhood was ordered held without bail at a hearing Thursday.
Derek Paige, 23, faces two counts of first-degree murder in the Oct. 7 shooting of 20-year-old Alexis Ceron-Salgado and 18-year-old Manuel Mendoza, according to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
About 10:50 a.m., Salgado was sitting in the driver’s seat of a vehicle in the 1800 block of South Throop when Paige ran up to the vehicle and fired multiple shots, Chicago Police and Cook County prosecutors said.
Mendoza, who was stranding near the driver’s side door of the vehicle when Paige approached, ran but was also gunned down, prosecutors said.
Paige ran west on 18th Place after the shooting.
Prosecutors said Salgado and Mendoza were members of the La Raza street gang and that the two gangs were waring at the time of the shooting.
Salgado suffered seven gunshot wounds to his neck and face and Mendoza was shot four times in the back and armpit, authorities said. Both were pronounced dead at the scene.
A witness who was “a short distance away” and saw the shooting identified Paige as the shooter, prosecutors said. A police-operated POD camera also captured the shooting, in which the shooter was seen touching the vehicle’s fender. A fingerprint matching Paige’s left thumb was recovered.
Paige is accused of killing the two men in retribution for a shooting that happened the night before in the South Side Fuller Park neighborhood.
In that shooting, someone shot and seriously wounded two men — ages 29 and 23 — as they left a liquore store about 1 a.m. in the 200 block of West Root, according to Chicago Police. Both were taken to Stroger Hospital in serious condition.
Prosecutors said one of the two were Ambrose gang members and one of them was a “known associate” of Paige.
Paige, who lives in the Pilsen neighborhood, was taken into custody Wednesday, according to police records.
He was scheduled to return to court April 17.
