Urbana man charged with shooting bar manager told police he thought people were 'spreading things' about him
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URBANA — The Urbana man charged in the shooting of the manager of a Champaign bar last week told police he brandished the same gun at a woman a few days prior and stole her cellphone because he thought she was talking about him and people were "spreading things" about him online.
Fidele Tshimanga, 24, was arraigned Wednesday on one count of armed robbery in that Feb. 5 incident and one count of burglary for allegedly stealing the gun from a parked car in late November.
He had already been arraigned Monday on one count of attempted murder and one count of aggravated discharge of a firearm in the Feb. 8 shooting of Brandon Hardway, 45, manager of Pour Bros. Craft Taproom, outside the bar in downtown Champaign.
Champaign County Judge Brett Olmstead ruled Wednesday that Tshimanga must remain in jail ahead of trial. He also granted a motion by Public Defender Peter Ladwein to have Tshimanga evaluated by a forensic psychiatrist to determine if he is mentally fit for trial and if he was insane at the time of his alleged offenses.
Recounting evidence from the shooting, Olmstead said Tshimanga allegedly asked Hardway for a cigarette and shot him at point-blank range, unprovoked, when he didn't receive one.
State's Attorney Julia Rietz said Tshimanga admitted to police after he was arrested that he had stolen the gun. She said the gun had been reported stolen Nov. 26 by a man who told police it was taken from the center console of his vehicle sometime after he parked it outside his apartment four days earlier in Savoy.
In the Feb. 5 incident, a woman reported to police that she was riding a Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District bus to the Illinois Terminal in downtown Champaign with her two children when a man on the bus started trying to talk to her, Rietz said.
The woman did not want to speak to the man, she told police, so when she arrived at the terminal, she sat down in the lobby. But the man walked up to her, displayed a gun to her 13-year-old son and took the woman's phone out of her hand, she said.
The woman said the man then smashed the phone on the ground and fled. The interaction was caught on video, and the woman reported the incident to police.
When Tshimanga was arrested shortly after the Feb. 8 shooting, officers determined that he matched the description of the robber at the terminal, Rietz said.
Officers asked him about the incident and said he admitted to brandishing the gun at the woman and told police he thought she was talking about him and that people are "spreading things" about him on their phones.
Rietz said police also asked him about the gun, and he admitted to them that he stole it from a parked car.
Arguing for his client to be released on pretrial conditions, Ladwein said an initial investigation shows Tshimanga "suffers from severe mental-health problems that have not yet been properly treated."
Olmstead noted that Tshimanga has family support in the area and no criminal record and that he needs mental-health treatment but sided with the state's request to keep him in custody, saying evidence shows Tshimanga is suffering from delusions that cause him to believe that random people he crosses paths with are spreading disrespectful or threatening messages about him.
The judge said the danger is there is no "rhyme or reason" to the victims of Tshimanga's alleged violence, and the court could set no conditions that would prevent him from rifling through cars to potentially steal a gun.
