CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A detainee at Cook County Jail has been charged with first-degree murder in the beating death of his cellmate over the weekend.
Christian Gonzalez, 24, allegedly beat and killed 19-year-old Pedro Ruiz, who was found by correctional officers unresponsive in his cell early Feb. 1 in the Division IX of Cook County Jail, according to the Cook County sheriff’s office.
Ruiz was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and died of “multiple injuries,” the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. The sheriff’s office said Ruiz had head trauma.
Gonzalez was being held without bail on charges that include attempted murder, the sheriff’s office said. He is due for a bail hearing on a first-degree murder charge Thursday afternoon.
In a statement, the sheriff’s office said it “launched a thorough internal investigation of all the factors involved in this case. We take all acts of violence in the jail extremely seriously and work tirelessly to prevent those intent on committing harm from being able to do so.”
Ruiz, of the Back of the Yards neighborhood, had been ordered held without bail on charges of attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm in connection with a shooting last week in his neighborhood, Chicago police said.
Ruiz was accused of shooting a 21-year-old man at about 11:15 p.m. outside a store in the 1800 block of West 47th Street after getting into an argument inside the store, police said.