OUR GOVERNMENT AND COURTS WORKING TOGETHER LIKE A WELL OILED MACHINE TO TURN A MURDER LOSE ON OUR CITY'S STREETS....
A 24-year-old man has been charged with murder in connection with the death of a man run over by his own car on the Southwest Side early Thursday, police said today.
Lazaro Zapata, of the 4100 block of South Albany Avenue, is expected to appear in court this morning.
Zapata is alleged to be involved in an attack about 12:30 a.m. in the 4000 block of South Kedzie Avenue, police said.
Raul Medina, the 41-year-old man who died in the incident, was in a Ford sedan with two women when two men approached.
Police believe the two men got into a dispute with the driver over the theft of a television set. The dispute escalated into a fight and the two men may have then pulled Medina out of the car. It was unclear from police accounts who was alleged to have stolen the television.
The two attackers punched and kicked Medina and sped off in his car, before making a U-turn and running over Medina, police said. As the two tried to escape, the car also hit a utility pole.
Police arrested the men soon after. Medina, of the 2100 block of South Albany Avenue, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died.
Records show that in 2003 Zapata was arrested for the beating death of a 69-year-old corn vendor. According to Tribune reports at the time, Antonio Rodriguez was selling corn near the corner of 31st Street and 38th Place when a 9-year-old boy started harassing him.
After Rodriguez shooed the boy away, the boy went home and returned with his older brother, Frank Quiroz and Zapata, then 16. Police said at the time that Quiroz kicked the vendor in the legs while Zapata beat him with a baseball bat.
In 2004 Zapata was sentenced as an adult to 18 years in prison, but later appealed. Three years later, at the order of the first-district state appellate court, he was resentenced as a juvenile. It was not immediately clear when he was released from prison.
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