A woman charged with firing a gun outside Blue Island bars, an action the city cited in closing The Vault and Raven’s Place last year, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge this week.
Kenya Walton, from Chicago, plead guilty to reckless discharge of a firearm Wednesday at the Cook County Courthouse in Markham, according to court records. Walton received two years of probation that ends on Aug. 26, 2026 and was ordered to perform 50 hours of community service.
Walton’s attorney, Roger Brown, said he successfully negotiated a reduced sentence for Walton, who was initially charged with a felony.
“It would have been a harsh result for her to have been convicted of a felony, or even of a misdemeanor, of just shooting her gun into the air one time,” Brown said. “I fought really hard to get her charges reduced.”
The Vault and Raven’s Place, which were next to each other on the 13000 block of Western Avenue, permanently closed after the New Year’s Day shooting in 2023, after the city decided not to renew their business licenses.
Although Walton did not discharge the firearm inside either establishment, she told police she left The Vault with her friends and “made a dumb decision” to shoot her gun into the air outside the Double Play Saloon, a block away from Raven’s Place and The Vault.
Following the closure, the owner of the two businesses, Dushone Thomas, and The Vault’s manager, Raymond Thomas, filed a lawsuit against claiming Blue Island treated the businesses unfairly.
Now in federal court, both parties have agreed to submit a joint status report by Sept. 5, following discussions about difficulties in obtaining pre-2019 emails from the city, court records show. These complications arose due to a 2019 ransomware attack on Blue Island’s systems.
The two-count lawsuit argues the city violated the 14th Amendment rights and property rights of the owner and manager by closing the establishments following shootings in May 2021 and September 2022.
After a shooting at The Vault in May 2021, Blue Island Mayor Fred Bilotto and other city officials met with the owner and manager to draft a safety agreement to prevent future incidents. After another shooting in September 2022 outside Raven’s Place where two people were injured, Bilotto, as liquor commissioner, revoked the liquor licenses for both establishments. The owner appealed, and both businesses were allowed to stay open until the appeal was heard.
Shortly after Walton fired the shot after leaving The Vault, Bilotto’s decision to close both businesses was upheld by Cook County Judge Alison Conlon, finding that Thomas should have had more security to protect patrons in and around the bar, according to court records.
Brown said he believes Walton had a concealed carry license and a Firearm Owner Identification Card when she fired the gun. Still, he believes that a larger preoccupation with guns in Chicago-area communities is having a detrimental effect on residents.
“We have an obsession with guns in this country that is overwhelming,” he said. “It’s hurting people like Kenya Walton, who, quite frankly came very close to having her life ruined.”
smoilanen@chicagotribune.com
