The man accused of killing a Chicago Police officer had gotten into an altercation with a group of Hispanic men about an hour earlier, then shot the cop because he was “the first Hispanic he saw,” CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson said Monday.
Menelik Jackson, the accused shooter, is charged with one felony count of first-degree murder, three felony counts of attempted first-degree murder and resisting arrest; police say he tried to flee. Johnson said Jackson has confessed.
Also charged in the death of off-duty Chicago Police officer John P. Rivera is Jovan Battle, 32, Chicago Police said. Battle is charged with one felony count of first degree murder and three felony counts of attempted first degree murder. Battle, Johnson said, has an 18-page criminal history and 10 convictions for violent crimes.
“Chicago lost a young guardian,” Johnson said Monday at a news conference at CPD headquarters.
Johnson said Jackson got into a confrontation with a group of Hispanic men at the McDonald’s restaurant at 600 N. Clark St. The men were on a party bus; Rivera was not. After the bus left, Jackson began searching for it, then came upon Rivera — an hour later.
“I guess he settled for the first Hispanic he saw,” Johnson said. Because of that, Johnson said, hate crime charges are a “very real possibility.”
Jackson previously had tried to become a Chicago cop.
“This guy actually had the nerve to think that he could become a Chicago police officer,” Johnson said. “It’s disgusting.”
Jackson had been sentenced to 30 months’ probation after pleading guilty to attempted residential burglary in a 2017 case, during which he entered the home of an Ashley Loving on July 3, 2017 and threatened her with a gun — also violating a May 2017 protective order apparently taken out by Loving.
When she sought the protective order in August 2015, Loving wrote that “Menelik has punched me and threatened to kill me. … He also choked me and threatened to kill my parents in their home.”
Jackson was on GPS monitoring at the time Rivera was shot, and was in court earlier in March for violating that monitoring agreement by letting the GPS battery run down.
Jackson and Battle were arrested about 3:25 a.m. Saturday in the 700 block of North Clark Street, police said.
Cook County Prosecutors said Battle pointed out Rivera and his group to Jackson as being the same group of Hispanic men whom Jackson and his friends had fought with earlier that night. Battle, his lawyer said, suffers from mental illness.
Both men were denied bail at a court hearing Monday.
“All he wanted to do was help people,” CPD Cmdr. William J. Bradley, Rivera’s commanding officer, said at Monday’s news conference. “My third watch is really struggling because he was such a good person.”
RELATED
• Cop killed in River North shooting always ‘knew he wanted to be a police officer’
• Man suspected in off-duty Chicago cop’s killing once applied to be cop, sources say
• Police searching for 1 in ‘random’ River North killing of off-duty Chicago cop
