A shooting on a CTA Red Line train earlier this week was prompted by little more than an offhand comment, Cook County prosecutors said in court Friday.
Indya Smith, 23, faces attempted murder and other charges for allegedly shooting a 33-year-old man Wednesday morning during a confrontation on a northbound train between the Bryn Mawr and Thorndale stations.
In custody, Smith claimed that the man she shot had made a comment about wanting to trip her because she was walking too slowly when they were both boarding the train at the Wilson Station, prosecutors said.
On the train, Smith relocated to another car where she said she thought about the man’s comment and then returned to his train car, prosecutors said.
Smith then allegedly spat in the man’s face and was walking away when he moved toward her.
Prosecutors said Smith told police that she reached into her bag for a water bottle but instead withdrew a gun that she said she found days earlier in an alley.
She was aiming at the man’s face when she pulled the trigger, but the bullet hit him in his shoulder, passed through his backpack and then smashed a window on the CTA train, prosecutors said.
Other passengers fled and they were not identified.
The man wrestled Smith for the gun, eventually taking possession of it and holding her on the floor of the train until police officers arrived, prosecutors said. The man was taken to a hospital for treatment in fair condition.
The entire incident was captured by CTA surveillance cameras, prosecutors added.
Smith did not have a license to possess a gun, which still would not have allowed her to possess the gun on a CTA train, prosecutors argued in their petition to hold her in custody pending trial.
She additionally faces counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon.
Assistant Public Defender Scott Fenner said Smith had never been arrested before and argued she was defending herself.
Judge Susana Ortiz ordered Smith held in custody pending trial, calling her alleged actions “extremely unreasonable.”
Ortiz further banned Smith from the CTA while the case is pending if she should be released later.