• 2025-09-26 22:27:50
• Gun Violence

JOLIET, IL — A retired and proud Will County union contractor who has lived in Joliet his whole life, 62-year-old Anthony Sraj testified on Friday afternoon that he has been a smoker "for over 40 years unfortunately." But rules are rules, and his favorite neighborhood bar, Izzy's on Joliet's Theodore Street, obeyed state law and prohibited cigarette smoking inside the establishment.

On March 8, 2018, things inside the bar were different. A new customer, Patrick Gleason, entered the bar and Gleason lit up his cigarette while seated just a few feet away from the bartender Danny Rios and the rest of the customers gathered around the bar.

According to Sraj, Rios helped at Izzy's as "fill-in" bartender. "It's mostly girl bartenders. (Rios) worked for Northern Illinois Gas and he'd fill in if one of the girls needed a night off."

Will County prosecutor Jim Long asked his witness for Gleason's first-degree murder trial whether Sraj did anything when Gleason lit up his cigarette — the first time.

"Yes, I did, there's one gentleman," Sraj began to say, before he paused, after realizing he didn't want to refer to the murder defendant seated in front of him as a gentleman, so he corrected himself.

"There's a guy. I never recognized him. Never seen him before and I said, 'That doesn't fly'," Sraj testified.

"I'm a smoker," Sraj explained telling Gleason. "You've got to go outside ... it's two steps outside."

Sraj admitted he couldn't believe Gleason's reaction — spewing profanity and hurling racial slurs about Hispanics and the bar being a Hispanic-owned bar.

The first words out of Gleason's mouth were, "f*** that, I''ll do what I want, and I'll f*** the place up," Sraj recalled.

Since Sraj just downed a shot of hard liquor, he slid his empty glass over to Gleason for him to put out his cigarette.

"And he put the cigarette out," Sraj testified.

The first cigarette incident happened around midnight.

About 20 minutes later, after Sraj moved to the other side of the bar, to talk with the bar owner's son, Thomas Izquierdo, another cigarette incident with Gleason happened. And that incident drew the attention of many people gathered inside the bar.

"This defendant is smoking again," Sraj testified. "It was at the end of the evening ... and I was with Izzy's son. I said, 'Well, that's it, you can't ... and he said, 'I'll do what the f*** I want. I said, 'Now, you're done. Hit the door."

And because Gleason kept vowing to shoot the place up, Sraj confiscated Gleason's jacket.

Sraj walked with the coat into the entrance hallway and banged Gleason's coat against the wall to determine whether Gleason had a gun in his possession.

The entire incident was captured on Izzy's surveillance video, so the jury watched the series of events during Friday's trial.

"I banged his jacket, and I gave it back to him," Sraj testified. He explained for the jury that he banged the coat against the wall "because, if it made a loud thud. I would not have given his jacket back."

After Gleason got his coat back, the video cameras showed Gleason staggering out the bar, accompanied by his date for the night, Pamela Griffin, now 69, a long-time family friend. Griffin accompanied Gleason to the REO Speedwagon concert at the Rialto that night. On their way home, the pair stopped at Izzy's Bar on Theodore Street.

During the concert, Griffin testified Thursday, she and Gleason sneaked in separate bottles of vodka and whiskey, allowing them to consume hard liquor and mixed drinks during the Rialto concert. While Gleason sat at Izzy's bar, Griffin testified she mostly played pool inside Izzy's.

Video surveillance cameras showed Gleason and Griffin leaving the bar together around 12:25 a.m. after Gleason was told to leave by Sraj.

As they left, Sraj walked past them. He had just gone outside to smoke a cigarette himself.

As for his final encounter with Gleason — less than an hour before the murder of Danny Rios in that same very hallway — "there was no words exchanged," Sraj told the courtroom. "No physical contact, no nothing."

Long asked his witness to describe Gleason's condition at Izzy's.

"Probably inebriated," Sraj responded. "Well, the way he talked. You don't go into a Spanish bar and say f*** (racial slur to the bartender). It's not too smart to say. You don't downgrade people."

Long asked if Sraj had any drinks at Izzy's during his three-hour stay that night.

"Yes. I wasn't in church. Probably four to five at least," Sraj testified, adding that he probably had one or two beers at home before he drove to Izzy's, which is only a mile away.

Sraj testified that he left Izzy's around 1 a.m. — about 10 minutes later Gleason returned, wearing a black ski mask, fatally shooting Rios after hiding just inside the entrance door and not setting foot into the bar for nearly five minutes.

Back at home, "when I walked in the back door, she was awakened by the number of squad cars," Sraj said of his wife. "My wife says, now what did you do? I said, I didn't see any accident.'"

Sraj told his wife that night at the bar was uneventful except for one notable incident "with one asshole in the bar and he left a while ago."

With that, Sraj and his wife fell sleep. Then, after sunrise, Sraj learned through news reports or social media that a deadly shooting happened at Izzy's.

"I heard Danny got shot," he testified.

And that prompted Sraj to take the initiative of contacting to Joliet's Police Department to notify the detectives about his encounter with Gleason leading up to Rios' murder.

"I knew everything was on tape. And I'm sure since I was in the bar before it happened," the police would want to interview me, anyway, Sraj explained for the jury.

Long replayed for the jury the video tapes showing the two different incidents inside Izzy's in which Sraj confronted Gleason for lighting up cigarettes.

During the second incident, "I said, you can't smoke and I grabbed his jacket. He said, 'I'll do what I want.' He kept saying, 'F** these (Mexican racial slur) and I'll f****** shoot this place up. I told Izzy's son, I got this. I got up and walked down to him, and he said f*** you. I said, 'No, f*** you. You're done," Sraj told the jury.

Sraj testified he made the proper decision by confiscating Gleason's jacket to check for a gun. "Due to the numerous times he made reference to shooting up the place," he testified.

Gleason's murder trial resumes Monday. He's represented by attorneys Jeff Tomczak and CJ Haney of downtown Joliet's Tomczak Law Group.

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