HARRISBURG, Ill. - A shooting dating back to July 2018 may have been resolves with the arrest yesterday of a Harrisburg man.
The problem is, we aren't being told which shooting...and in Harrisburg, there certainly have been a lot of them.
Alexander McWilliams, 33 of Harrisburg, is the guy in question. Harrisburg Police said they took McWilliams into custody yesterday (Wednesday, April 10) at 3:20 p.m.
There is no indication that McWilliams is connected to the deadly shooting Tuesday night that claimed the life of a Harrisburg man; authorities are being uncharacteristically quiet about that one, too.
However, we're working on both incidents and will get them to you as soon as someone helps us sort it out.
In the meantime, McWilliams is being held on the 2018 case on very serious charges of Attempted First Degree Murder and Aggravated Battery. Harrisburg authorities qualify that the July 2018 shooting victim was a man and that it took place "at a Harrisburg residence" with no specific date. This occurred during the tenuous administration of former state's attorney Jayson Clark, so it's not surprising that there wasn't a lot of info available at that time.
McWilliams happens to be wanted on an Illinois Department of Corrections parole violation as well.
He's a Saline County felon dating back to at least 2010 as far as records have revealed; charged with multiple counts of violence over that time frame, he's spent quite a bit of his young adult life either in the courtroom or behind bars, which is apparently where he's headed again, given the parole violation.
We're attempting to learn if McWilliams is associated in any way (or might be in an opposing branch of the action) with the ongoing gang activity fomented by the onerous Gibbs-Hamilton bunch, a strong likelihood since Ian Hamilton has been incarcerated for a few weeks - and remains locked up at the Saline County Detention Center, pre-jury trial, which is set for the end of June - and is nothing if not interested in saving his own skin from getting stuck in IDOC again; speculation is rampant that there will be a LOT more arrests made in the wake of Hamilton singing his familiar "I-don't-wanna-take-showers-with-Bubba" tune.
In the meantime, while other outlet reports seem to express "shock" that another shooting in Harrisburg occurred this week (it's Virginia and Webster streets in town, which should give you an idea of why no one should be "shocked," as that's the usual hunting grounds in the section of town north of the bypass that was plagued with shootings between 2012-2017, and which you can read about here, here and here), we'll clear all that up and see if there's any connection to McWilliams and maybe even to Hamilton. Be watching...and thanks for continuing to read through our difficulties. With any good fortune we'll come back stronger than ever, so stay with us!