A 27-year-old man was ordered held in lieu of $150,000 bail Wednesday for allegedly firing a gun toward buildings from the rooftop of his Lincoln Park high rise.
Peter Vitale also gave an unidentified woman the gun after he shot nine times Sunday afternoon, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Lorraine Scaduto said.
The woman also fired several times from the rooftop of the 2700 block of North Pine Grove, Scaduto said.
No one was injured.
A witness couldn’t clearly see the darkly-clad Vitale’s face, but after officials were able to match the time stamp to the security key he used for access to the building, they were able to identify him on Facebook, prosecutors said.
The shots fired from the rooftop drew a SWAT team to the densely populated neighborhood, which includes high and low rise residential buildings and businesses.
Vitale used his own security card to get to the rooftop from the building’s gym, Scaduto said.
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Several area residents called 911 as soon as they heard the shots.
Eight cartridge casings were found on the building’s rooftop following the incident, Scaduto said.
Vitale turned himself on Tuesday with his lawyer David Freidberg by his side.
He was charged with aggravated discharge of a firearm and reckless discharge of a firearm.
Vitale, has a Firearm Owners Identification card and once owned a registered hand gun, Freidberg told Judge Donald Panarese Jr. on Wednesday. He works with data analytics for a company called SPINS, Freidberg said.
One resident initially thought the gunshots he heard were fireworks.
"I heard maybe about five shots," said Sam McIntire. "It sounded like more but I could tell that some of them were echoes. And then there was like a 10 second pause and then about five more of the same thing."
In a Facebook post Sunday night, 44th Ward Ald. Tom Tunney said, “Police are reviewing video, and believe a male and female were testing a gun on a roof. Police share that this is an isolated incident, and no injuries have been reported.”
