Key Takeaways
- A Quincy man was found to have acted in lawful self-defense after shooting during a confrontation in a TJ Maxx parking lot.
- The judge acquitted Alan Pacheco of charges directly tied to the shooting but convicted him on a felony gun charge due to lack of a concealed carry license.
- Pacheco shot and injured Terrance Horton after being attacked by Horton and another man while he was in his vehicle.
- This case highlights the conflict between self-defense rights and strict state firearm laws that can penalize lawful gun owners.
- Armed citizens should be aware of local storage and carry rules, as they can impact both self-defense and legal outcomes.
Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
QUINCY, IL — An Adams County judge has ruled that a Quincy man acted in lawful self-defense when he shot a man twice in a TJ Maxx parking lot in July 2024, but the same ruling convicted him of a felony gun charge that could still land him in an Illinois prison.
As reported by Muddy River News, Associate Judge Holly Henze found 23-year-old Alan Christopher “Chris” Pacheco not guilty on all three charges directly tied to the shooting itself. Pacheco was acquitted of two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm and aggravated battery with a firearm. An attempted murder charge had already been dismissed on the first day of the bench trial after the prosecution rested. The judge found Pacheco guilty only on aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, because Pacheco had a valid Firearm Owners Identification card but did not hold an Illinois concealed carry license.
Sentencing is scheduled for June 17.
The Incident
The shooting happened around 2:27 p.m. on Saturday, July 6, 2024, in the parking lot of TJ Maxx at 6210 Broadway in Quincy’s Prairie Crossing Shopping Center. Quincy Police, the Adams County Sheriff’s Department, and Illinois State Police all responded after a 22-year-old man was found on the ground with apparent gunshot wounds.
According to testimony presented at trial, Pacheco and his girlfriend DeJia Hankins were shopping at TJ Maxx when Hankins recognized Islam Woodson, a man with whom Pacheco had a prior dispute dating back to a 2023 incident at a local restaurant. Woodson was in the store with another man later identified as 22-year-old Terrance D. Horton.
Pacheco approached the two men inside the store. A verbal altercation followed. Per Pacheco’s testimony, one of the men was handling a shoulder bag and implied a firearm was inside. Pacheco testified the man was “moving it towards his front, and he was saying that I didn’t want to have nothing to do with what he had in there.”
Pacheco and Hankins disengaged and continued shopping before leaving the store. Once outside, Pacheco said the men’s vehicle blocked his car from backing out of the parking space. Horton and Woodson then approached the driver-side window, leaned in, and began punching Pacheco, according to the defense’s account presented at trial.
Pacheco grabbed his Smith & Wesson 9mm handgun, which he had stored between the center console and the driver’s seat. He fired multiple shots, striking Horton twice. Pacheco initially left the scene with Hankins, then returned to the shopping center to surrender to police.
Horton was transported to Blessing Hospital and was reported to be in stable condition. Both Horton and Woodson were charged with felonies in connection with the incident.
Why the Self-Defense Finding Mattered
Judge Henze’s ruling explicitly recognized that Pacheco acted reasonably to defend himself. The defense had argued throughout the trial that Pacheco was the target of a coordinated attack inside his vehicle by two men who blocked him in and then assaulted him through the open window with his girlfriend in the passenger seat.
Defense attorney Ryan Schuenke summed up the defense’s framing in his closing arguments. “This is for us to put ourselves in Mr. Pacheco’s situation with his girlfriend in the car and decide, in that moment, if he was about to suffer great harm and did act reasonably to defend himself.”
Pacheco was a valid FOID card holder, the firearm was legally owned, and his only prior record was a traffic ticket. He was a full-time student at John Wood Community College studying to become an electrician and worked full time as an electrical contractor.
By every measure that matters in a self-defense analysis, Pacheco was a law-abiding gun owner who used force against an imminent threat of serious bodily harm. The judge agreed.
The Charge That Stuck
The conviction came down to one factor that had nothing to do with the shooting itself. Illinois requires a concealed carry license to carry a loaded, accessible handgun in a vehicle. A FOID card alone is not enough. Because Pacheco’s loaded handgun was stored between the center console and the driver’s seat rather than in a locked container, his possession of that firearm in the car violated state law.
His defense attorney’s post-verdict statement to Muddy River News laid the situation out in plain terms. “If it (the gun) had been in a locked box, it would have been not guilty on everything. But we don’t know what would have happened if he didn’t have the ability to grab it and take the action he did to defend himself. He’s guilty of one thing to protect himself from the other.”
That single sentence captures the trap Illinois law set for Pacheco. If the firearm had been locked away in compliance with state requirements for FOID-only transport, he would have been acquitted on every charge. But if the firearm had been locked away, he likely could not have reached it in time to defend himself when two men blocked his car and began punching him through the window.
More from USA Carry:
The 2A Lesson for Armed Citizens
The Second Amendment is a fundamental civil right. The right of a law-abiding citizen to be armed and able to defend themselves and the people they love against violent attackers is the entire point of that protection.
Pacheco’s case illustrates how restrictive state firearms laws can punish lawful self-defense even when the use of force itself is found to be justified. He did everything the criminal use-of-force analysis required. He faced an imminent threat of serious bodily harm. He used proportional force. He returned to the scene and cooperated with police. A judge agreed his actions were reasonable under the law.
And he is still facing potential prison time on a felony conviction.
This is a strong argument for the constitutional carry movement. In states that recognize the right of law-abiding adults to carry without first obtaining a permit, Pacheco walks out of court a free man. In Illinois, where the state requires a separate concealed carry license on top of a FOID card and dictates how a firearm must be stored in a vehicle, the same act of justified self-defense produces a felony record.
For armed citizens who travel through or live in restrictive states, the lesson is to know the storage and carry rules cold. Storage requirements that lock a firearm away from immediate access can directly affect whether you can defend yourself when seconds matter, and they can also affect whether you walk out of a courtroom free after a justified shooting.
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