We would need a bigger blog, a faster server, and a lot more staff if TTAG detailed everything wrong with Murder City, USA. However, the story of a liquor store that hired a four-time convicted felon (and registered sex offender) to provide armed security surely is exceptional in more ways than one.

Chester Holmes, 42, got a gig working armed security for a liquor store in Chicago.  According the CPD, things went south when a maskless customer walked into the store.  Holmes reportedly ordered the man to mask up and the customer seems to have declined the directive from the vigilant guard.

Screencap from Illinois State Police website by Boch.

A quick search of Illinois’ sex offender database shows Mr. Holmes earned a conviction for sexually abusing a 16-year-old female when he was 24. He’s listed as a sexual predator.  Suffice it to say with four felonies to his credit, he didn’t have a valid FOID card, much less the wallet full of licenses needed to legitimately work an armed security job.

One thing led to another inside the store and cops say Mr. Holmes shot the non-compliant customer. Holmes then followed the wounded customer outside the shop and shot him until the customer was no longer at risk of spreading COVID. Or breathing.

At arraignment, through his public defender, Mr. Holmes claimed he shot the maskless customer in self-defense, claiming that the 28-year-old maskless man would infect everyone with COVID and leave them all to die of the flu-like disease. The public defender then noted that the sexual predator “has a big heart and is a kind-hearted man.”

The judge didn’t buy it. Even in Chicago’s famously forgiving criminal justice system. Mr. Holmes earned the rarity of being held without bail in Cook County Jail pending his trial.  That right there is a miracle in today’s Cook County court system.

CWB Chicago has some of the story:

“The victim fled the store, fell outside, followed by the defendant [who], according to the surveillance video, shot a second time. The defendant then paces back and forth and shot a third time,” Marubio said before ordering 42-year-old Chester Holmes held without bail.

Holmes, who is barred from possessing a weapon because he is a four-time convicted felon and registered child sex offender, was working as an armed security guard at the store on the 6000 block of South Racine when a 28-year-old man walked in without a COVID mask around 9:53 am. Monday, according to Assistant State’s Attorney Darryl Auguste.

Holmes and the victim argued about the mask policy and the victim eventually left. He then turned around and walked back in. When he did, Holmes met him with a drawn handgun and shot him, Auguste said.

The victim fell to the ground outside the store.

Holmes, who defense attorney Jonathan Feldman said “has a big heart and is a kind-hearted man,” shot the man again, then paced around and shot him a third time before running away, according to Auguste. The victim, who was shot in the stomach, arm, and leg, was taken to a hospital where surgeons removed part of his intestines, Auguste said.

The moral of the story: not all security guards are properly licensed and vetted. Act accordingly if you have to interact with one, especially in sketchy locations. Like the nation’s third largest city.

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58 COMMENTS

    • Not a problem for them… “Community minded citizen with a past of “minor” indiscretions stands up to protect the compliant masses from the inconsiderate, lawless rogues who want to spread the dastardly Chicom WuFlu throughout the country killing millions of innocents”.. “Do not look at this kindly persons past (we’ve ALL made mistakes haven’t we?) but rather look at this heroic deed as his legacy”… “Let us bestow upon him the FIRST George Floyd medal of good citizenship and pray that he is granted a fair and speedy trial before a far left judge with a jury of his peers (aka convicted felons)”…

    • “Leftists are going to be very confused on how to process this one…”

      No they won’t….It will go down as a death from COVID.

  3. Mask or no mask the store owner might as well hand the keys to his business over to the victim’s relatives.

    • Bad news – Sorry about your loss, victim’s family.

      Good news – You now own a liquor store, or the value thereof, plus.

      Bet this is chalked up to be another COVID-related death, just like a Denver-area motorcyclist who got into a head-on, and was found at autopsy to be COVID+.

      • Actually I don’t think the victim died. Just says part of his intestine was removed.

        I don’t want to blame the victim, though I would say if the “security” in a business is yelling at you telling you to mask up or leave, or even unrelated to COVID, if they don’t like your blue shirt or that you have a gun or knife, it’s not worth giving them your money trying to buy something and fighting it out if you disagree. If the staff are jerks, don’t hang around to prove your point, swallow your pride, de-escalate, and give your business to a better company who can be respectable and wants to earn your money.

        Even if you are right to refuse a mask, change your shirt, right to be armed, etc… Hanging around may get you charged with trespassing or fighting with Mr. Jerk guard could get you killed, and best case outcome maybe they apologize to you, or at least begrudgingly let you buy the beer or whatever you were after. More downside than upside.

      • That really depends, in some areas, liquor licenses are *very* limited, and can be worth serious money, like hundreds of thousands to millions each.

        The license itself can be bought and sold, or even inherited…

  4. Seems to me the person that hired this “security guard” is in legal jeopardy too. Hiring someone who is a 4 time felon and without any needed credentials for the job has to be illegal in itself IMO

    • Ehhh…nothing will happen to the licker store owner. Groot said “wear a mask”! Except maybe he may make a contribution to the po-leece chillen & young men’s fund. No big deal hiring a felon in a city filled with criminals. BTW boycotting Chiraq would do more than any law,cop,corrupt states attorney or inept Groot ever would.

    • Ahh, Chicago. Any story about it makes me feel better about my own life decisions.

      Where’s Snake Pliskin? We’ve got a decent looking Matrix 4 coming out…I’m wondering if an Escape From Chicago made for 2021 would be a nice entry to the series to round out its own trilogy.

      • “We’ve got a decent looking Matrix 4 coming out…”

        Eh, it’s a new ‘Morpheus’, Laurence Fishburne wasn’t asked to participate.

        Someone else is playing the part…

  6. This could not possibly have happened. Must be a late April Fool’s Day story. Shootcago has laws. The Liburds are protecting us.

    “Gun violence” must be controlled. There should be a law…..How about God’s “Thou Shalt Not Kill.” Ooops, tried that, didn’t work. Should have banned “assault rocks” back when Cain killed Abel. That would have nipped it in the bud.
    How about man’s Murder 1; Murder 2; Manslaughter. There that will do it. Ooops, those didn’t work.
    There should be a law against felons having a gun. Ooops, tried that….didn’t work.
    Maybe a Firearm Owners IDentification Card…you could call it a FOID Card. that will stop ’em Ooopsy, tried; nada, nothing, not effective. Only useful for controlling the good guys…a feature, they claim.

    Well, maybe just one more law from “take them all if I could” FineStain; “Never worked a day in my life” Bolshevik Bernie; Ole Creepy, Sleepy, Senile, Crazy, Fire Two Blasts In The Air Joey, et el, et el..
    Ooops, that ain’t gonna do it either…..because that is not the agenda.
    A politician with a law never stops a bad guy with a gun.
    He only controls the good guys….which is his true agenda. Making good people helpless does not make bad people…..or politicians……harmless.
    “Killing is a matter of will, not weapons.
    You cannot control the act itself
    by passing laws about the means employed.”
    The late Col Jeff Cooper, 1958
    Handgun expert and founder of Gunsite Academy
    Evil, Violence, and Mayhem exist. Always have, always will.
    For once I agree with Bill O’Reilly. Bad guys shooting people is the price of freedom. Liberty is risky business. That’s why our Founding Fathers recognized our God-given right to shoot back.

  7. The liquor store owner was bypassing the law by hiring security and wanting them to be armed. I would imagine theirare licenses he needed in order to hav an armed security on his payroll. This is no different than a slumlord having an armed bodyguard that was not licensed. I would think that he will lose everything he owns – someone who hires unlicensed muscle is usually into crime anyway, so no great loss.

  10. “COVID mask”….no such thing. We have surgical masks, cotton masks, N95 respirators, but there’s no such creature as a “COVID mask” because it’s impossible to stop a virus with just a mask.
    Otherwise, yeah, the store owner is SCREWED, as is the ‘security guard’.

  12. Not being familiar with that ‘hood i have to ask who owns the stores around there arabs or orientals?

  13. Back when America was a free country, a convicted felon once completing their time in prison, was a free citizen. They were able to vote as well as buying as many guns as they wished, and travel wherever they wished with them.

    They could seek employment. Get hired. And if necessary kill another felon who never learned his lesson.

  15. First, the TTAG commentary on the story gets it wrong: “Holmes then followed the wounded customer outside the shop and shot him”

    But the actual news article tells a different story: “Holmes and the victim argued about the mask policy and the victim eventually left. He then turned around and walked back in. When he did, Holmes met him with a drawn handgun and shot him, Auguste said.”

    It seems the would-be customer left, and then re-entered the store even after he had been ordered to leave.
    A totally different scenario than the one claimed by the TTAG commentary.

    And I thought all you Second Amendment absolutists disagreed with any prohibitions, including felony, to firearms ownership as unconstitutional?

    Why the double standard for Mr. Holmes?

    • Because similar to the Constitution, the way to legitimately change laws is not to allow lifelong violent criminals to simply ignore them. If he was in court, peaceably fighting the application of such a law, I’d be on his side, while he is shooting citizens without reason, I want him executed for it, preferably within the week. Is that too simple for that tiny mind to understand?

    • And now Liar49er also demonstrates that it’s blind. It’s attempts to excuse the murder are also part of the article here.

      It’s not much of a leap from being happy that someone was murdered to committing those murders.

    • A totally different scenario than the one claimed by the TTAG commentary.

      Perhaps you should have read the ENTIRE “commentary” as it reads exactly the same {quote} “Holmes and the victim argued about the mask policy and the victim eventually left. He then turned around and walked back in. When he did, Holmes met him with a drawn handgun and shot him, Auguste said”.

      • There is no legitimate reason to shoot someone for what is, at most, trespassing. If the victim had returned with some sort of weapon, creating an imminent threat of deadly force, then—and only then—could shooting him be justified. No such weapon was mentioned either here or in the linked article.

        You and Liar49er are both wrong. Period. You can go away now before you look even more stupidly evil for doubling down on defending murder.

        • You and Liar49er are both wrong.

          First of all I was just pointing out to “Liar49er” that “it” was content challenged… Secondly I didn’t say the asshole had a right to shoot the guy and I damn sure do not condone murder, looks like miner is not the ONLY person here that needs a refresher in reading comprehension… Third, WHO the FUCK are YOU to tell anyone to go away… But hey, thanks for playing…

        • MADDMAXX,

          It seems that I did misread your comment and your intent. I got them wrong. My apologies.

          Can you agree that if someone is trying to justify a clear case of murder (or attempted murder) it is entirely appropriate to call them an evil bastard who is unwelcome, no matter who is saying so? (And yes, that still applies to Liar49er.)

    • When the author wrote that he followed the wounded man outside, that should have been your clue he was not taking about the first shot fired. These are not two totally different scenarios, but descriptions of two distinct moments from the same scenario.

  16. Many on the left Will not see a problem with what he did. After shooting and killing someone who is not wearing a mask is it perfectly acceptable course of action to stop the spear of covid. Along with door-to-door mandated vaccinations of everyone in the country using the military to do it, literally pointing a gun to their head and shooting everyone in the country that doesn’t comply.

    Because we already know what the left wants when it comes to vaccinations: the mandated complete and total literal extermination of every single solitary United States citizen that refuses to be vaccinated. Along with a complete and total extermination of every single solitary United States is in that opposes that. Just like what they want to do to every single gun owner, Trump voter, Republican, conservative and everyone else not like them.

  18. How I do it.
    When somebody’s got a gunm pointed at you do what they say until your prepared to carry out a successful revenge.

  19. It’s not clear from the story whether the shooter was hired by the liquor store owner, or if he was contracted from a local private security company. This point potentially makes a huge difference in the potential liability for the liquor store owner.

    My guess, though, is he was just hired by the liquor store owner. A legit security company would have been required to do a criminal history check and take other steps for him to have been licensed (PERC card) to work in security. There are a few bottom feeders in that industry that skirt rules, but even they would be nuts to hire a guy like this.

    • The last time I worked security our prints were run through the FBI. You did not get the license if your check came back dirty.

  21. So THAT’S what it takes to get remanded in Chicago

    I would have thought you’d at least need a two-fer.

  22. The security guard’s carrying a firearm illegally and shooting the mask-refusing customer are two separate issues. As a felon, there is no doubt that the guard carried illegally. Whether he was justified in shooting the customer depends on the customer’s behavior. If the customer posed an imminent, credible threat to the lives and health of the occupants of the store that could only be neutralized by deadly force, the shooting was justified. (That the customer might infect the occupants with COVID-19 fails on imminence since it’s purely speculation whether he was infected and contagious.) The situation is similar to that of Bernhard Goetz who used a revolver he carried illegally to defend himself against four muggers in the NYC subway. A jury found him not guilty for the shootings but guilty of the gun violation.

    • Did you read the article? It’s not similar to Goetz at all. You’re just sharing the limited knowledge you have. This guy is a murderer and a 4 time felon who followed him outside and kept shooting at him. Goetz was on the subway minding his own business and was attacked. For the second time.

  24. That’s how the left like us blacks: stupid, violent, on welfare, and always blaming others for our own mistakes and stupid decisions. When we get a good leader for the black community, like Ben Carson or Larry Elder, these folks are just “Uncle Tom”. I don’t want no woke white loser from the left telling me how to live my life. Bunch of fools, liars, hypocrites! They should figure out if they’re male or female first 😂

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