A longstanding argument between father and son turned fatal Monday when a 22-year-old fired several shots, killing his father in a Des Plaines mobile home park.
Martin Chavez-Lomeli Jr. is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his father, 54-year-old Martin V. Chavez, according to Des Plaines police.
During a heated argument, the son allegedly fired shots at his father in the bedroom of their home in Town and Country mobile home park, 815 E. Oakton St., according to police.
Before the shooting, his 10-year-old sister ran to a neighbor and asked them to call 911 “because her brother and father were fighting,” police said.
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Officers responded at 8:38 a.m. to housing community, which borders Maine West High School, and found Chavez’s body on the bedroom floor with multiple gunshot wounds, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
An autopsy released Tuesday found Chavez died of a multiple gunshot wounds and ruled his death a homicide, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
Police searched the area and found the son driving a couple blocks away near Forest Avenue and Wolf Road, police said.
Officers arrested him and found a handgun in the vehicle, police said. Neither the son nor his father had a valid Firearms Owners Identification Card.
In a statement, police said Chavez-Lomeli Jr. admitted in an interview to shooting his father.
“Apparently Martin Chavez-Lomeli Jr. was engaged in a long standing dispute with his father which ultimately climaxed with the murder of his father,” police said. The sister did not witness the shooting.
Chavez-Lomeli Jr. was charged Tuesday, and is due for a bail hearing on Wednesday in Skokie.
He was recently charged with a misdemeanor count of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon earlier this year. Des Plaines police arrested Chavez-Lomeli Jr. after a July 29 incident in which he allegedly threatened a tow truck driver he thought was following his vehicle in the motor home park.
Chavez-Lomeli Jr. was driving with his sister at 11:30 a.m. when he got out of his vehicle, allegedly told the driver he wasn’t allowed to tow cars from his lot, and then allegedly flashed an Airsoft pistol tucked in his waistband. Officers responded to his home and arrested him.
Court records show he posted bail, but that the Cook County state’s attorney’s office did not prosecute him. A spokesperson for the state’s attorney’s office did not have a record of why the case was dropped.
