Hoffman Estates man gets 30 days for shooting at repo man

Overreacting could have cost Ronnie Kindred substantial time behind bars.

For firing a gun at three employees of a repo company as they tried to repossess his wife's SUV earlier this year, the 42-year-old Hoffman Estates man could have received up to 15 years in prison.

Instead, Kindred, of the 1900 block of Brighton Lane, will spend 30 days in Cook County jail, followed by 30 months of felony probation. That includes one year of intensive probation supervision which involves reporting frequently to his probation officer, submitting to random drug testing, adhering to a curfew and performing community service.

Cook County Judge Thomas Fecarotta imposed the sentence Wednesday following Kindred's guilty plea to aggravated discharge of a firearm.

The shooting occurred about 8:45 p.m. Jan. 13 after Kindred discovered repo company representatives hooking his wife's car to a tow truck, said Assistant State's Attorney Mike Gerber. The defendant then placed a chrome handled revolver to the head of one of the employees and ordered him to release the vehicle, Gerber said. The victim agreed, but instead he jumped into the cab of the tow truck and drove away. Police did not recover the gun, Gerber said.

Fecarotta rebuked Kindred for overreacting. "You put a lot of people in the community at risk," the judge said.

In determining the sentence, Fecarotta took into consideration Kindred's relatively clean record, which includes a misdemeanor battery more than 20 years ago, calling him a "hardworking man."

But Fecarotta also warned Kindred that if he violates any condition of his probation, he will find himself in the penitentiary.