CHICAGO _ A man was charged Wednesday in the deaths of Chicago police Officers Eduardo Marmolejo and Conrad Gary, who were struck and killed by a commuter train on the Far South Side earlier this week, officials said.
Edward Brown, 24, of Chicago, is charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and reckless discharge of a firearm, according to the Cook County state's attorney's office. He was scheduled to appear for a bond hearing Thursday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
The officers had been called to an area near 103rd Street and Dauphin Avenue around 6:20 p.m. Monday after a ShotSpotter sensor picked up gunfire, police officials said. Marmolejo, 36, and Gary, 31, saw a suspect, got out of their car and scrambled up to the tracks, according to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
Video from one of the officers' body cameras shows them crossing the viaduct and heading south while talking about where the suspect might have gone.
A northbound Metra Electric train approached ahead of them. They stayed on tracks used by southbound trains, unaware they were in the path of a South Shore Line train, Guglielmi said. They were struck near the 103rd Street Rosemoor stop.
It was not known how fast the southbound train was going, but trains typically travel 65 mph through that area. The train was not supposed to slow down until the Kensington station, about a mile away, according to Michael Noland, CEO and president of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District, which operates South Shore trains on Metra tracks.
Police recovered a handgun near where the officers were struck, Guglielmi said. Shell casings were found on the scene, he said, but there are no reports that the officers were shot at or fired their guns.
Marmolejo had been on the force 2 { years and Gary 18 months, police said. Both were fathers of young children. They were among four Chicago police officers killed in the line of duty this year.
On Nov. 19, Officer Samuel Jimenez, 28, was killed in a mass shooting at Mercy Hospital & Medical Center on the Near South Side. Two women, Dr. Tamara O'Neal, 38, and pharmacist Dayna Less, 24, also were killed before the gunman died after he was shot by another officer in the abdomen and shot himself in the head.
On Feb. 13, Cmdr. Paul Bauer, 53, was fatally shot while chasing a suspect to a stairwell outside the Thompson Center in the Loop.
Marmolejo and Gary were assigned to the Calumet District on the Far South Side where three other officers have died at work this year. Two died from suicides outside the district's police station on East 111th Street. The third officer, 47-year-old Vinita Williams, died in July after collapsing at the station.
The deaths of Marmolejo and Gary mark the first time in almost 30 years that two Chicago police officers were killed in the line of duty during the same incident. Officers Raymond Kilroy and Gregory Hauser were fatally shot on May 13, 1990, while responding to a domestic disturbance on the Northwest Side.
