He bumped into him

Killer of Northern Trust bank executive convicted of involuntary manslaughter in 2023 Mag Mile attack

 
“Failure to treat, failure to protect” follow-up: Cook County Circuit Judge Charles Burns rejected a first-degree murder conviction Thursday for Henry Graham because of longstanding Illinois court rulings that attackers in one-punch deaths aren’t presumed to know their actions could result in a killing.
By Frank Main
Jun 25, 2026, 3:21pm CDT




Henry Graham was convicted of involuntary manslaughter Thursday in a 2023 attack that was among a series of unprovoked attacks in the Loop involving suspects who had cycled in and out of jail, prison and he mental health system.

A century of Illinois court decisions that a single-punch death isn’t grounds for a first-degree murder conviction prompted a Cook County judge Thursday to find the attacker of a Northern Trust bank executive guilty of a lesser charge of involuntary manslaughter.

Henry Graham sat impassively in a tan jail uniform with his hands folded as Judge Charles Burns delivered his verdict in the high-profile 2023 attack on Russell Long on the Magnificent Mile.

Graham came up behind Long and struck him in the back of the head. Long fell forward onto a North Michigan Avenue sidewalk and suffered a fatal brain injury. He died almost two weeks later.

“He was ambushed,” the judge said. “He did not see this coming. He went down like a tree in a hurricane.”

But state case law going back to a 1921 Illinois Supreme Court decision says someone who delivers a single blow to the head with a fist isn’t presumed to have knowledge that it will kill the person, Burns said in rejecting a first-degree murder conviction.

Instead, the judge found Graham guilty of involuntary manslaughter because he acted recklessly: “In no way, shape or form was the defendant justified in using the force he did.”

Graham will be sentenced later. Involuntary manslaughter is a Class 3 felony, which typically carries a prison term of two to five years unless there are aggravating factors.




Russell Long, a Northern Trust executive killed in 2023.

On Tuesday, the second day of Graham’s trial, Assistant Cook County Public Defender Celeste Addyman said prosecutors’ decision to file a first-degree murder charge against her client was wrong.

“We’re not trying to excuse what happened,” Addyman said. “The outcome is a tragedy.”

But, according to Addyman, a long line of legal decisions in Illinois have found that “one punch is not evidence of first-degree murder.”

Prosecutors countered that Graham’s statements to Chicago police officers after the attack proved his intent to harm Long.

Graham, who is Black, said he didn’t like white people, referring to Long as a “honky,” according to his statements captured on police body-camera video.

Graham said “I ain’t never lost a fight in my life” and said that if Long had gotten up, he would have tried to “whoop his ass.” During his interaction with the officers, Graham, 52, also ranted incoherently about O.J. Simpson.

There was no testimony about Graham suffering from mental illness, but court records show he’s been diagnosed with schizophrenia and has lived in homeless shelters, jails, prisons and hospitals in Chicago, Evanston and South Bend, Indiana. He has been convicted of two other felonies and seven misdemeanors for punching and kicking people.

Long’s killing and Graham’s case were featured last year in a Chicago Sun-Times series, “Failure to treat, failure to protect,” about people with severe, untreated mental illness who cycle in and out of jails, prisons and hospitals.


Long’s brother Daniel, who lives in Arizona, sat through the trial, closing his eyes during graphic testimony Tuesday by an assistant medical examiner about his brother’s extensive head injuries, including facial and skull fractures and bleeding of his brain from falling face-first onto the sidewalk.

“Just the noise of it was a really loud cracking noise that is stuck in my head,” a witness, Eric Arrigo, testified earlier.

Minutes after Graham attacked Long, witnesses pointed Graham out to Chicago police officers. Graham spoke with the officers, admitting he hit Long, but said it happened after Long bumped into him.

Then the officers released him.

Graham wasn’t arrested in Long’s death until October 2023 while he was in the Cook County Jail on another charge. During the period he was on the street, he attacked several other people, police say.

Four Chicago cops were given short suspensions for rule violations in connection with their actions on the day Long was attacked, including not filing a police report.

Long, a vice president at Northern Trust, was shopping, with new blue jeans in his bag, when he was punched from behind on the sidewalk on Michigan Avenue after going across the crosswalk at Ontario Street on June 29, 2023. He died 13 days later at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Long, 53, lived in a high-rise near the Chicago River, had attended the University of Illinois and enjoyed living downtown and listening to live music.


But he was growing increasingly concerned about his safety, one friend said.



Judge Charles Burns at a graduation of drug court participants in 2023.