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During an interview with Medill students at Pontiac Correctional Center in Pontiac, Ill., Ariel Gomez draws on a map of the Cicero and Diversey intersection to illustrate the night of the shooting. Gomez explains how he fired his gun while on Diversey—not on Cicero as suggested by the prosecution. (Natalie Krebs/Medill)
Michael Jordan was recovering from the flu on the night of June 13, 1997, but still managed to carry the Chicago Bulls over the Utah Jazz in the NBA finals, dunking and rousing the crowd to its feet.
The city was ablaze in celebration—and mischief. About five miles from the United Center, at a rough-hewn intersection of the northwest side Chicago, more than 100 people took to the streets. People sat on top of cars in parking lots and on the sidewalk curbs, bathed in amber from the street lamps and storefront lights. Fans waved Bulls flags. Puerto Rican flags fluttered in red, white and blue. Nearby, the annual Puerto Rican Festival was in full swing.
At about the time the game ended, five teenage boys piled into a red 1995 Nissan Pathfinder. One tucked a .45-caliber dull silver-colored handgun under the hood of the vehicle. They began to cruise. At about 11:30, they passed through the chaotic intersection of Cicero and Diversey avenues when a bullet tore through the back and chest of a man standing close by, 32-year-old Concepcion Diaz.
A few hours later, as the teenagers lit up a smoke on a front porch away from the crime scene, the police arrived. They took the boys into custody in the early morning hours. All faced first-degree murder charges. Now 14 years later, the boys are men. And Ariel Gomez, 32, is still in prison for Diaz’s murder, while the only other boy in the car convicted of the same crime has had his charge reduced and is free.
A 10-week investigation of Gomez’s case by seven students of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism raises serious questions about his conviction, according to interviews with several eyewitnesses; experts in gangs, ballistics and forensic pathology; a prison official; Gomez and his family, including his mother, father, brother and wife; attorneys; seven Freedom of Information Act requests; and court, police and medical records. Consider:
- No witness identified Gomez as the shooter who killed Diaz.
- A gun, found by police at Gomez’s home, did not match the bullet recovered from Diaz’s body. Prosecutors argued it was reasonable to assume that Gomez could have hidden or disposed of the murder weapon. A second gun was never found, nor was there ever any evidence that Gomez had one. The weapon recovered from Gomez’s home was a semiautomatic pistol. After firing a bullet, a semiautomatic weapon ejects an empty cartridge case, but no case was found at the scene or in Gomez’s Pathfinder. All five boys in Gomez’s car on the night of the crime said in separate interviews with police and prosecutors immediately after the shooting that Gomez had one gun, which they all described as silver or chrome.
- In his written statement to authorities, which Gomez claims was a false confession police beat out of him, he said he shot into the crowd. But he has always maintained that he shot only once straight up into the air. He said in an interview for this article that he was trying to save face after being confronted by a brick-throwing mob.
- Three of the other boys in the car were charged with murder but found not guilty. The driver of the car, Jose Dominguez, was initially convicted of first-degree murder. But his charge was reduced on appeal to aggravated discharge of a firearm on the grounds that the state had not proved Gomez guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt, and, therefore, the driver couldn’t be guilty of that crime either.
- Police tried to persuade at least two witnesses into identifying Gomez as Diaz’s murderer, according to recent interviews by Medill students. A third witness said police tried to coerce her into identifying the killer as Gomez, according to internal memos from law students working with an attorney who once represented Gomez. Those three eyewitnesses, who told police they could not identify Gomez as the killer, were not called to testify at his trial.
- Gomez has always alleged that one of the detectives forced him into a signed confession. The detective has been accused of manipulating witnesses and coercing confessions in dozens of other cases, according to court filings by the Center on Wrongful Convictions, part of Northwestern’s law school, which was representing a different Chicago man convicted of murder. The detective, now retired, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
- At the time of the crime, Gomez was not affiliated with a gang, had no tattoos or scars and had no prior juvenile or adult criminal record, according to an investigative report used to help determine his sentencing. At Gomez’s trial, prosecutors sought to establish that Gomez was the only person with a gun at that intersection then. But Medill students established that members of at least two gangs were at the intersection that night. Interviews with gang experts indicate that it was highly unlikely that there was only one gun at the crime scene, given that there was a large crowd at the intersection and based on the presence of different gangs that would typically carry at least one gun as part of their regular security on the streets.
Authorities found the victim, Concepcion Diaz, lying in a pool of blood on the northwest corner of Cicero and Diversey. The fatal bullet entered Diaz’s back, struck his heart and exited through his chest. A bullet was found lodged in his right wrist. Diaz, pictured here with his wife and son, died at the age of 32. (Exhibit from trial)
In a bench trial, the judge sentenced Gomez to 35 years in prison for first-degree murder. Over the next several years, one state judge and two federal judges would express serious misgivings about Gomez’s case. One of those federal judges said, “It is a manifest injustice that Mr. Gomez should sit in prison, convicted of that crime” while one of his co-defendants, Dominguez, was cleared of it on the grounds that he couldn’t have been an accomplice if Gomez is innocent. The other federal judge said, “Without doubt, a disturbing aspect of this case is that Dominguez’s conviction was overturned by a panel of the Illinois Appellate Court on the basis that there was insufficient evidence to prove that Gomez actually fired the shots killing the victim.”
Meanwhile, the case work supervisor at Pontiac Correctional Center, where Gomez is incarcerated, said she believes Gomez is innocent. “I don’t think I’ve believed anybody in 16 years, but I believe him,” said Emily Ruskin, the Pontiac official who had also served as Gomez’s prison counselor, in an interview for this article. “He has the paperwork to back it up.”
When asked for comment for this article, the states attorney’s office said in a statement, “The defendant’s claims have been extensively reviewed by federal and state courts. All the courts, including the judges whose comments have been cited by the Medill Innocence Project, have unanimously rejected Mr. Gomez’s arguments and upheld his conviction.”
Over nearly three weeks, Medill students have sought comment from Chicago police about the various allegations in this story and the accompanying video. The police have not commented as of today’s publication. Medill students will continue to seek comment from Chicago police moving forward.
Booked in prison as Gomez, his mother’s maiden name, rather than his legal last name, Ginjauma, he has about five years remaining on his sentence before he’s eligible for parole in 2016, assuming he receives credit for good behavior. In his 13 years behind bars, he has always maintained his innocence. “That’s one thing I’m sure about,” he said in an interview for this article. “I know exactly where I shot, and there’s no way I shot into the crowd.” There is no peace for him: “I got angry with the system, with God, even with my mom. Sometimes I tell [my wife], ‘Why are you still here? Leave.’ It overwhelms me. I’ve been angry with everybody, I think, and sometimes they don’t deserve it. I think if my luck is this bad, what’s coming to them by being with me?”
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