$61,000 REWARD, NO TIPS FROM COMMUNITY
ABC7 I-Team exclusive photo of Ernesto Godinez being taken into custody by ATF officers on Monday evening.
Ernesto Godinez, co-leader of the Southwest Side street gang the Almighty Saints, was charged Tuesday May 17, 2018. He was accused of shooting an ATF agent earlier in May in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighborhood.
Ernesto “Ernie” Godinez, co-leader of the Almighty Saints, was arrested about 7:00 p.m. Monday, after he turned himself in.
Godinez was charged with forcible assault of a special agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) while on duty and while using a dangerous weapon. Godinez faces 20 years in prison.
Godinez was ordered held in custody. His detention hearing was scheduled for 11 a.m. on May 17 2018.
According to the Chicago Police Department, Ernesto Godinez, age 27, has been arrested three times within the past two years on gang-related charges. The gang member’s most recent arrest was July 30, 2017.
“This individual was willing to shoot a member of law enforcement. I believe there would be no hesitation on his part to do the same thing to an area resident.”
— CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson
Prosecutors who reviewed all the surveillance video said the suspect was the only person seen in the area at the time of the shooting.
The task force was acting on information that a gang in the neighborhood recently obtained a cache of weapons to “get ready for the summer,” after a number of rifle battles in 2017. In May 2017, two Chicago police officers were ambushed with an assault rifle and suffered bullet wounds near 43rd and Ashland.
The Almighty Saints a street gang with a territory claimed in the Back of the Yards neighborhood for almost 60 years.
Almighty Saints gang leader charged with shooting ATF agent in ambush attack.
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