opened their case against Montano by introducing jurors<\/a> to the slain 32-year-old officer, who emigrated from Colombia before joining the police force. He valued the Southwest District he patrolled so much that he bought a house there, they said. On the day he was killed, he woke up early to bid his wife, a flight attendant, goodbye.<\/p>\nMontano\u2019s attorneys, though, pushed back on the first-degree murder charge, arguing that Montano acted rashly in a moment of extreme stress. They said they expect him to take the stand in his own defense.<\/p>\n
As the trial resumed Wednesday, jurors viewed more body camera footage of the shooting, as emotional police officers took the stand to describe how they remember that day.<\/p>\n
V\u00e1squez Lasso and other officers were dispatched to the 5200 block of South Spaulding Avenue on the Southwest Side after Montano\u2019s girlfriend called 911 to report that he threatened her with a gun, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n
During the call, Montano grabbed her phone and tried to stop her from calling for help, prosecutors alleged.<\/p>\n
As police arrived, Montano jumped out a window, prosecutors said, and was chased by V\u00e1squez Lasso. <\/p>\n
As the chase neared a playground, Montano turned toward the officer, prosecutors said, and both fired weapons. V\u00e1squez Lasso hit Montano in the mouth area, and Montano shot the officer in the head, arm and leg.<\/p>\n
Enciso recounted how he and V\u00e1squez Lasso came to the aid of fellow officers, who were chasing Montano after the domestic-related 911 call. Stuck in traffic, V\u00e1squez Lasso jumped out of the police vehicle and chased after the suspect.<\/p>\n
Realizing he likely wouldn\u2019t get through the traffic shortly before 5 p.m., Enciso parked the car and also left on foot in the direction his partner ran.<\/p>\n
He soon heard gunshots, he testified, recalling that the shots had different timbres from separate weapons.<\/p>\n
During cross-examination, Assistant Public Defender Brett Balmer asked whether the different gunshots went off \u201csimultaneously.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes,\u201d Enciso replied.<\/p>\n
As another officer performed CPR on V\u00e1squez Lasso, Enciso approached Montano with commands that he said the then-18-year-old ignored.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe begins to beg me to kill him,\u201d Enciso said.<\/p>\n
Montano asked why Enciso didn\u2019t kill him, the officer testified.<\/p>\n
Enciso testified that he ordered Montano to \u201cshut the f\u2013\u2013\u2013 up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Montano responded, according to Enciso: \u201cYou shut the f\u2013\u2013\u2013 up b\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013. That\u2019s why I killed your b\u2013\u2013\u2013\u2013 a\u2013\u2013 boy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Originally Published: July 16, 2025 at 1:31 PM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the chaotic moments following the fatal shooting of Chicago police Officer Andr\u00e9s V\u00e1squez Lasso, the alleged shooter…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":69513,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[49015,960,5404,5386,1818,7207,3677,49016,12433],"class_list":{"0":"post-69512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-andres-vasquez-lasso","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-cook-county","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-police","14":"tag-shootings","15":"tag-steven-montano","16":"tag-trial"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114867819277507190","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}