Man freed pretrial in Naperville shooting

A man charged in a Naperville shooting will be free while awaiting trial, despite DuPage County prosecutors arguing if it weren’t for a gun malfunctioning, the victim might have been killed.

Jermaine Badie, 18, of the 700 block of Chesterfield Avenue, Naperville, appeared in first-appearance court Thursday morning.

He is charged with aggravated battery-discharging a machine gun and unlawful use of a weapon-loaded machine gun, according to court records.

Judge Joshua Dieden ordered he wear a GPS monitor.

The shooting happened around 8:48 p.m. Monday outside an apartment building on the 100 block of Tesla Drive. An 18-year-old man was shot in the chest.

According to court records, one of his lungs was damaged and he has been placed on a ventilator to help him breathe and likely will need surgery to repair the lung.

According to a petition for detention that prosecutors filed, the gun involved was modified with a silencer and with a switch designed to make it fire automatically.

But when the shot was fired, the bullet casing became lodged in the barrel, preventing other bullets from a 30-round magazine from being fired, according to the petition.

Prosecutors argued if not for the malfunction, they believe the victim would have been struck multiple times.

The victim was shot after arranging to fight one of his acquaintances in a disagreement over whether the victim could come to see him, according to several witnesses police interviewed.

A BB gun was found beneath the victim’s body, but the witnesses told police he did not show the gun. One witness said he was known to carry the BB gun.

According to the petition, police said Badie told them he heard the victim tell somebody to get him his gun or “pipe.”

Badie also told police he obtained the gun from when someone dropped it after shooting at him in Chicago.

The petition says the gun has been tied to four shootings in Milwaukee.