Trial for ‘07 Carpentersville gang slaying begins

Seventeen-year-old Aaron Razo was gunned down near a Carpentersville park because gang members sought retribution after one of their own was chased by a rival gang, Kane County prosecutors argued Monday.

But instead of a fistfight near Golfview Elementary School on Aug. 2, 2007, Henry Black pulled out a 9 mm pistol and fired seven shots toward enemy gang members, prosecutors said.

“Why did the defendant shoot and kill Aaron Razo? Merely because Aaron Razo was a member of a rival street gang. That’s it,” said Assistant State’s Attorney David Belshan during opening arguments in Black’s trial.

Black, 20, of the 0-99 block of Birch Street, Carpentersville, is on trial for first-degree murder.

If convicted, Black, who was 17 at the time of Razo’s death, faces between 35 and 75 years in prison.

Belshan recounted events from that August night in which a member of Black’s gang was chased in his SUV by some other gang members, so he gathered his allies and went looking for a fight.

At about 7 p.m., the five pulled up in a large SUV near Wakefield Drive and Bristol Court and flashed signs at rival gang members, Belshan said. Black got out of the rear passenger side of the SUV, fired the shots — one of which hit Razo in the chest — and drove off.

Police pulled over the SUV shortly after Black was dropped off at his home and officers later went to Black’s ranch home and found him there hiding in the bathroom, Belshan said.

An initial search turned up nothing, but police returned three days later with a search warrant and found a handgun in a storage bin in Black’s sister’s bedroom. Bullet fragments and shell casings from the scene were matched by the state crime lab to the gun, Belshan said.

But defense attorney Lisa Damico argued that witnesses in the case — primarily gang members — all had their own motives and their testimony would be “problematic at best.”

Damico also said a man playing soccer at the park will testify that the shooter looked like someone other than Black. Damico also argued that police found the gun five days after the shooting and couldn’t find gunpowder residue or fingerprints tying Black to the weapon, even though he was arrested shortly after the shooting.

The trial before Kane County Judge Allen Anderson is expected to last about a week.