3 men face new murder charge in 2021 Joliet Township Halloween party shooting

Three men have been indicted on an additional charge of first-degree murder of a 20-year-old man whom police said was the target of 2021 shooting at a Halloween party in Joliet Township.

A superseding indictment filed on Thursday charged Joskar Ramos, 19, Jeremy Lopez, 20, and Thomas Lopez, 22, with the first-degree murder of Sergio Hernandez, 20.

Hernandez was critically wounded and paralyzed following the Oct. 31, 2021 shooting in Joliet Township. Hernandez died last October and his death was deemed a homicide.

Will County Sheriff’s Deputy Chief Dan Jungles said Hernandez was the target in a shooting at a Halloween party attended by about 200 people on Oct. 31, 2021, at a residence at 1018 E. Jackson St. in Joliet Township.

Hernandez was a member of the Latin Kings gang, and Ramos and the Lopez brothers are members of the Vice Lords gang, Jungles said.

The Latin Kings and Vice Lords are two of the four major gangs that have been known to operate in Joliet since the 1980s.

Ramos and the Lopez brothers face charges of first-degree murder of the deaths of Hernandez, Holly Mathews, 22, and Jonathan Ceballos, 22. The latter two victims were killed in the shooting in Joliet Township.

Altogether, Ramos and the Lopez brothers face 12 counts of first-degree murder over the Oct. 31, 2021 shooting in the superseding indictment that was filed on Thursday.

Last year, Jungles said Mathews and Ceballos, and almost 200 other attendees were caught in the shooting that involved members of the rival Vice Lords and Latin Kings street gangs, who were not invited to the party.

“Everyone who was at that party had the potential to be shot and killed that day. It definitely could’ve been a lot worse,” Jungles said at the time.

Jungles said the gang members at the Halloween party had a confrontation and decided to settle their dispute “in cowardly fashion, by shooting their weapons into a crowd of close to 200 people.”

Ramos and the Lopez brothers have also been charged with wounding five other people in the Oct. 31, 2021, incident by shooting them with a firearm.