‘Temerity to honk his horn:’ Elgin road rage murder trial begins

Ivan Martinez and his friend Francisco Trujillo-Uscanga were traveling through Elgin on their way home from their jobs at a Huntley restaurant in August 2020 when a car tried to enter their lane.

Martinez, who was driving his Mini Cooper south on State Street (Route 31) at the time, decided to honk his horn.

What happened next was the focus of the opening of a murder trial in Kane County for the Lake in the Hills man accused of shooting at Martinez’s car, killing Trujillo-Uscanga and wounding Martinez.

Dru Jarvis, 26, of the 1300 block of Cunat Court, is facing charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder, and armed violence.

On the first day of his trial on Monday, authorities said Jarvis was a passenger in the car that Martinez honked at during the early morning of Aug. 22, 2020.

Kane County prosecutor Mark Stajdohar told the jurors that Jarvis responded by holding a handgun out a window.

“Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang,” Stajdohar said. “Because Ivan had the temerity to honk his horn.”

Stajdohar told the jury that a camera on a building at the corner showed seven muzzle flashes emanating from a white vehicle. The video does not show Jarvis, he said.

Police traced the ownership of the vehicle to Jarvis. When they searched his cellphone records, they determined the phone had been in the area at the time of the shooting, and that someone had used it to search “two men shot in Elgin” on the internet.

Trujillo-Uscanga, a 41-year-old Elgin resident, told Martinez after the shots were fired that he couldn’t breathe. Stajdohar said he had been shot in his torso.

Martinez suffered several gunshot wounds to his legs. Police used tourniquets on both legs to control bleeding.

Erin Jazwiec, the defense attorney representing Jarvis, gave a brief opening statement, asking the jury to base its decision on the facts to be presented and to keep an open mind.

The trial resumes Tuesday morning.

Jarvis was found guilty in 2021 of aggravated discharge of a weapon toward a person or a vehicle. In that case, he was accused of wounding a man on Aug. 29, 2020, on the 300 block of South McLean Boulevard in Elgin. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

The charges in the Elgin murder case were filed in June 2022.