The Comeback of Rylan Wilder

Photo of Rylan Wilder by Armando L. Sanchez of the Chicago Tribune. The photo was taken in Rylan’s northwest Chicago home.

Rylan Wilder was 15 and working as an intern at Upbeat Music and Arts, a music school in the Irving Park neighborhood on the northwest side of Chicago – not far from his Logan Square home, where he lived with his parents.

The school provided instruction and experience for teenagers with a passion for music – like Rylan.

The school had a motto that proclaimed, ‘Music is important, but treating each other with love and respect is first.’

Rylan respected that motto – as well as the band ‘Monarchy Over Monday,’ which Rylan created. He was the lead guitar player and vocalist, and the band had developed a loyal and growing fan base. The band was even invited to play at the renowned ‘House of Blues’ in downtown Chicago. It truly was on a roll.

As Rylan was cleaning up the school during a November evening in 2019 as part of his internship, suddenly there were sirens and flashing lights outside.  Within seconds, a police officer, firing an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, pursued a bank robber, who had run into the school. 

The bank robbery, then a car hijacking, had occurred in a nearby suburb of Des Plaines, and the officer had pursued the robber from Des Plaines to the Chicago music school, firing about a dozen rounds inside the school, in pursuit of the bank robber.

The officer’s shots killed the fleeing bank robber, but one bullet also struck Rylan’s left arm as Rylan tried to escape to an adjoining room.  Rylan’s arm was bleeding profusely, and he was rushed to Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago to begin surgery.

Rylan’s parents later were told that Rylan had lost about half the blood in his body.  As the bullet exited his arm, it blew apart bone, muscle, nerves, and a major artery supplying blood to his left hand before the bullet fragmented and lodged in his abdomen.

Following the surgery, Rylan asked his parents whether anyone else inside the music school was hurt. They replied ‘no’ – only he and the bank robber were struck.  The bank robber died in the store.

In October 2023 – nearly four years after he was shot – along with 18 surgeries and three hours of physical therapy a day for nearly three years – Rylan still had no feeling in his left arm, hand, and fingers.

Despite his injuries of about four years earlier and absence of feeling, Rylan still was able to resume playing his guitar.

As of the beginning of 2024, Rylan has enrolled at Columbia College in Chicago, majoring in music technology.  He looks forward to becoming a music producer.

Although it can’t erase his disappointment and pain during the past four years, he has been awarded a #1.9 million settlement by the City of Des Plaines, which has not admitted to any wrong-doing by the police officer.

Despite his challenges during the past four years – many of them extremely painful, both physical and mental – Rylan has always remembered and practiced that motto of his music and arts school.

Music is still important to him, but his showing love and respect has been crucial, especially to those who have stood by him since that unexpected and traumatic moment in November 2019.