Shooting near Woodstock Square, standoff with police leads to 8-year sentence for Harvard man

A Harvard man has been sentenced to eight years in prison in a plea deal after he fired a gun near Woodstock Square in 2023.

Erick Gomez-Rubi, 24, entered a guilty plea Friday before Judge Tiffany Davis to one count of aggravated discharged of a firearm, a Class 1 felony. He also pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated use of weapon in another crime, for which he will serve his sentence at the same time, according to a McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office news release.

Gomez-Rubi originally was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder, Class X felonies, as well as two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, one count of reckless discharge of a firearm and 10 counts of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, according to the indictment filed in McHenry County court. He was being held in the McHenry County jail on $1 million bond.

Authorities said that about 10:45 p.m. June 29, 2023, police were called to the 200 block of North Benton Street in Woodstock in response to an “altercation between two individuals that involved a firearm,” according to a news release from the Woodstock Police Department at the time of his arrest.

A verbal altercation had escalated to the point that Gomez-Rubi allegedly pointed a handgun at another person, police said. According to the criminal complaint, he “discharged a firearm toward [a woman] and other bystanders, placing them in danger of great bodily harm” while in the road near the Square.

Police said he then ran to a parked car and drove to the intersection of North Benton and East Judd streets, where he reengaged with the same person and fired off a single shot from the handgun. No one was injured during the incident, police said.

Gomez-Rubi later was arrested at his Harvard home after a six-hour-long standoff, prosecutors said at a bond hearing in 2023, when they asked for his bond to be increased.

On the night of the Woodstock Square incident, Gomez-Rubi was out of jail on bond for a separate case in which he was charged only two days before.

Gomez-Rubi had been arrested June 27, 2023 in Woodstock and charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and possession with the intent to deliver 40 to 500 grams of marijuana, as well as misdemeanor charges of aggravated assault on public property and disorderly conduct, according to court documents. He was accused of pointing a handgun at a woman in the 500 block of Central Parkway in Woodstock and saying, “I will kill you, [expletive],” according to the criminal complaint filed in that incident.

Assistant State’s Attorneys William Bruce and Justin Neubauer prosecuted the case, according to the release from the state’s attorney’s office.