4 people killed on Chicago-area L train likely didn't even see the shooter, official says

FOREST PARK, Ill. (AP) — A man suspected of killing four people aboard a Chicago-area transit train shot them at close range while they were asleep, officials said Tuesday.

The shooting took place before 5:30 a.m. Monday aboard the Chicago area’s L system, on a Blue Line train that was moving near where the line ends in Forest Park, a suburb about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of downtown Chicago. Rhanni S. Davis, 30, was later arrested on another Chicago Transit Authority L line, according to police. Authorities charged Davis with four counts of first-degree murder Tuesday.

Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins said the victims likely didn't even see the shooter.

“They were shot execution-style as they slept," Hoskins told The Associated Press.

Margaret Miller, 64, and three men including Simeon Bihesi, 28, and Adrian Collins, 60, were fatally shot, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. All of their addresses were listed as unknown. Police said they were still working to notify relatives of the fourth person killed, so his name has not yet been released.

Preliminary investigation shows the victims were on two different cars as the Blue Line train was headed toward Forest Park, police said. The Blue Line runs 24 hours and stretches from that suburb through downtown Chicago to O’Hare International Airport. It runs both below and above ground.

The suspected shooter fled. But police found and arrested Davis thanks to video footage from the train, Hoskins said.

Public records did not have a listed phone number for Davis. A message sent Tuesday to a listed email was not immediately returned. Forest Park police and the Cook County state's attorney's office did not immediately respond to messages about Davis' legal representation. The Cook County public defender's office said it wasn't representing him.

Davis is scheduled to appear in court at noon on Wednesday, according to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who spoke Tuesday evening during a media briefing in Forest Park. She called the shootings a “horrific, heinous and inexplicable act of violence” and said more details would come out during the court hearing.

Investigators haven't determined a motive, police said at the briefing.

CTA officials said they were assisting in the investigation and that security footage “proved to be vital.”

“Although this matter remains under investigation, all current information points this being an isolated incident,” CTA President Dorval Carter Jr. said in a statement.

Forest Park police are used to calls to the busy transit stops there, Hoskins said. The CTA’s Green Line also ends in Forest Park and runs nearly 24 hours a day.

Over the years, nonprofit organizations have also used the transportation hubs for outreach and providing medical care and other services to homeless people who seek refuge aboard the trains, particularly in winter.

But the mass shooting in the community of 14,000 people has sparked new fears. Hoskins, whose position as mayor is part time, said he couldn't recall a homicide being reported in Forest Park in years.

His teenage son takes the L to school and he watched a little closer than usual at Tuesday morning's drop off.

“People are rattled,” he said. “We want to make them feel safe.”

AP writer Lisa Baumann contributed to this report from Bellingham, Washington.

Forest Park Police Department Deputy Police Chief Christopher Chin speaks to reporters at the Forest Park Village Hall over the shooting death of four people on a Chicago-area transit Blue Line train yesterday morning, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx speaks to reporters at the Forest Park Village Hall over the shooting death of four people on a Chicago-area transit Blue Line train yesterday morning, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

Dorval Carter Jr. President of the Chicago Transit Authority speaks to reporters at the Forest Park Village Hall over the shooting death of four people on a Chicago-area transit Blue Line train yesterday morning, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

Forest Park Mayor Rory Hoskins speaks to reporters at the Forest Park Village Hall over the shooting death of four people on a Chicago-area transit Blue Line train yesterday morning, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (Tyler Pasciak LaRiviere/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

A pedestrian waits on the Eastbound side of the Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train station at the Harlem Ave., station as a train approaches Chicago, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A pedestrian talks on his cell phone as he arrives at the Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line Harlem Ave., train station Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Traffic on the Eisenhower Expressway passes the Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line Harlem Ave., train station Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A security camera and speaker hang from the ceiling of the Chicago Transit Authority Harlem Ave. station as a Blue Line train approaches the station heading West to the Forest Park, Ill., station, as two pedestrians walk toward the station, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A cyclist enters a Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train at the Forest Park., Ill., station headed East to Chicago, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A security camera and speaker hang from the ceiling of the Chicago Transit Authority Harlem Ave. station as a Blue Line train enters the station heading West to the Forest Park, Ill., station as two pedestrians walk toward the station, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train car rides empty as it approaches the Forest Park, Ill., station Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

An emergency communication panel is seen on a Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A security camera and speaker hang from the ceiling of the Chicago Transit Authority Harlem Ave. station over the rails that head West to Forest Park, Ill., station as two pedestrians walk toward the station, Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

A Chicago Transit Authority Blue Line train waits at the Forest Park, Ill., train station for the eastern journey to downtown Chicago on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024, in Forest Park, Ill. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Yellow tape blocks off the parking lot of the Forest Park Blue Line train station in Forest Park, Ill., after four people were fatally shot on the train early Monday, Sept. 2, 2024. (Pat Nabong/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

BEIRUT (AP) — Hezbollah’s acting leader said Tuesday that even more Israelis will be displaced as the militant group extends its rocket fire deeper into Israel, in a defiant televised statement marking the anniversary of fighting that escalated into war last month.

In a defiant televised statement, acting leader Sheikh Naim Kassem said Hezbollah's capabilities are still intact despite weeks of heavy Israeli airstrikes and that it has replaced senior commanders killed in Israeli airstrikes.

“We are firing hundreds of rockets and dozens of drones. A large number of settlements and cities are under the fire of the resistance,” Kassem said. “Our capabilities are fine and our fighters are deployed along the frontlines."

He said Hezbollah's top leadership was directing the war and that the commanders slain by Israel have been replaced, saying “we have no vacant posts.”

He said that Hezbollah will name a new leader to succeed Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in an underground base in Beirut last month, “but the circumstances are difficult because of the war.”

A man shows a burnt car to a girl, after a rocket launched from Lebanon, hit an area in Kfar Vradim, northern Israel, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

A man walks as smoke rises from destroyed buildings at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Choueifat, southeast of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)