Waukegan man who fired gun near school agrees to plea deal

A 28-year-old Waukegan man accused of shooting a gun near a school in a fit of road rage accepted a plea deal that comes with a 10-year prison sentence, the Lake County state's attorney's office said Friday.

According to officials, Aaron Johnson was the passenger in a car that cut off a pickup truck near Grand and Lewis avenues just after 1 p.m. Nov. 29, 2019. The man in the pickup truck, a 61-year-old Waukegan resident, said people in Johnson's car were making obscene gestures, and he pulled into a parking lot at Grand and New York avenues.

Soon after, the man noticed the car Johnson was in had also pulled into the parking lot. The man said he saw Johnson get out of the car with a gun in his hand. Seeing the gun, the man pulled out of the parking lot and drove away. Johnson briefly ran after the truck and fired two shots in the truck's direction.

According to officials, the shooting happened 564 feet from Daniel Webster Middle School, and one parent witnessed the shooting.

No one was injured, but Jeff Facklam, the chief of the state's attorney's felony division, said the shooting happened in a busy area of Waukegan in the middle of a school day.

Johnson pleaded guilty to aggravated discharge of a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school.

Under the terms of the deal, he will serve 85% of the sentence. He will also be given credit for the 507 days he served in the Lake County jail since his arrest on the day of the shooting. When those conditions are factored together, Johnson will likely be in prison for just over seven years.