Dolton Man, 27, Gets 20 Years For 'Letting Loose A Hail Of Bullets' In Parking Lot: US Atty

CHICAGO — A Dolton man involved in an exchange of gunfire in a suburban Chicago parking lot in 2021 has been sentenced to more than 20 years in federal prison.

Anthony Hayes and Jamari Williams each fired multiple rounds at Reginald Daniels in a parking lot of an auto repair shop in Calumet City, on Aug. 9, 2021. Daniels and another individual with him were wounded. Daniels drew a gun from his waistband and fired multiple rounds at Hayes and Williams as they ran away, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois. One of Daniels’s shots struck an innocent bystander who happened to be driving near the store. The innocent bystander suffered life-altering injuries.

Three days after the shootings, law enforcement executed a court-authorized search of Hayes’s residence and discovered eight firearms, including the guns used by Hayes and Williams in the shooting of Daniels and the individual with him. Hayes, Williams, and Daniels were indicted in federal court in 2022 and have been in federal custody since then.

Hayes, 27, of Dolton, pleaded guilty earlier this year to a federal charge of unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition. Last week, U.S. District Judge John J. Tharp, Jr., sentenced Hayes to 20 years and eight months in federal prison.

Williams, 26, and Daniels, 33, both of Chicago, also pleaded guilty earlier this year to federal firearm charges. Williams was sentenced last month to 10 years in prison, while Daniels was sentenced in June to eight and a half years.

“By letting loose a hail of bullets towards an open business abutting a busy four-lane thoroughfare, defendant threatened countless other repair shop customers, employees, and passersby,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Mower argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum in Hayes’s case.

“Justice accordingly demands commensurate punishment.”