Grieving mother of college freshman slain by illegal immigrant makes emotional plea

Jessica and Thomas Gorman, the parents of Sheridan Gorman.

Jessica Gorman, the mother of a college freshman killed by an illegal immigrant in Chicago earlier this year, lashed out at the mayor of the city and made an impassioned plea for him to work with President Donald Trump to address violent crime in the Windy City. 

Gorman's daughter, Sheridan Gorman, was fatally shot at virtually point-blank range while she was out with college friends trying to see the Northern Lights earlier this year. Sheridan Gorman, 18, was a freshman at Loyola University of Chicago. Authorities say Jose Medina, a 26-year-old illegal immigrant allowed into the country under former President Biden's open border policies, was the gunman who killed the college freshman. 

Gorman was seen speaking to news cameras outside a Cook County criminal court in Chicago last week. "Chicago, please listen. Please let these murders end. Every murder is one too many. It doesn't matter who it was, what side of Chicago it happened on," the grieving mother pleaded.

"It's too much. Why has Chicago become so desensitized to this human loss? Why?" a distraught Gorman went on, her husband, Thomas Gorman, standing behind her and trying to console her. "We just feel like all of these failures, failure after failure. Again, all of these murders, every murder matters. It doesn't matter what color you are, where you live, how it happened. Every murder matters."

A day later, Chicago Alderman Raymond Lopez, a Democrat, criticized Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker for not working with President Trump on a solution to Chicago's ongoing violent crime problem. 

"I do not expect that call to come from either the mayor or the governor to the White House because to put it quite frankly — neither one of them are taking crime and violence in the city of Chicago or the state seriously," Lopez said during an appearance on Fox News. "We continue to have street takeovers that turn violent and deadly, we continue to have this slow drip mass shooting every weekend."

Pritzker and Johnson both espouse sanctuary policies, meaning they refuse to work with federal immigration authorities in enforcing arrests of illegal immigrants. Trump in recent days has been outspoken about violent crime in Chicago, saying on social media, "The city will die if the Federal Government, a fine tuned crime fighting machine, is not invited in, by the Mayor or Governor, to HELP. I am awaiting the call. Nobody should be forced to live under these conditions."

Johnson criticized Trump's suggestion that the city needs help, reportedly saying, "I find him to be a sorry individual, and if he was serious about driving violence down not just in Chicago, but across the country, he would not be engaged in endless illegal wars."

Below, watch Jessica Gorman's remarks to television news cameras.