Suspect in fatal shooting of Bradley police officer arrested in Indiana

A suspect wanted for fatally shooting a Bradley police officer and wounding her partner was arrested Friday near Fort Wayne, Indiana. | Indiana State Police Facebook photo

A suspect wanted for fatally shooting a Bradley police officer and wounding her partner was taken into custody Friday morning in Indiana.

Darius Sullivan, 25, was arrested without incident about 9 a.m. after he walked out of a home in North Manchester, Indiana, by the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Fugitive Task Force, Indiana State Police Sgt. Glen Fifield said at a news conference. North Manchester is about 35 miles west of Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Sullivan, of Bourbonnais, was wanted on a warrants of first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated battery with a firearm, Fifield said. Arrangements are being made to return him to Kankakee County.

Darius Sullivan and Xandria Harris

Narcotics and weapons were found inside the home, Fifield said. Sullivan was arrested with another man from Kankakee, but it wasn’t immediately clear if the second man was involved in the shooting of the Bradley police officers.

Investigators are still searching for a second suspect in the shooting, Xandria Harris, 26, of Bradley. A reward of $25,000 is being offered for information that leads to an arrest.

On Wednesday, Bradley Police Sgt. Marlene Rittmanic and her partner responded to a noise complaint about 9:40 p.m. at the Comfort Inn in the 1500 block of North State Highway 50, Bradley police said.

The officers went into the motel and spoke to people inside, who fired on the officers and struck them both, police said.

Rittmanic, 49, and her partner, Officer Tyler Bailey, 27, were taken to hospitals in critical condition and Rittmanic later died, police said. Bailey remained in critical condition at a hospital.

Rittmanic had lived in Kankakee and joined the Bradley Police Department in 2007. She previously spent seven years as a deputy with the Iroquois County Sheriff’s Department.

Marlene Rittmanic

Rittmanic’s niece said her aunt had worked for years to reach the rank of sergeant and was five years from retirement.

“The crazy thing is they’d probably have to kick her out, she loved her job so much,” Johnson said. “She wasn’t that type of person that wanted to pull you over to give you a ticket, unless she felt it was absolutely the only thing she had to do, but she wasn’t that kind of cop.

“She always aimed to be a cop to make a difference,” Ashlee Johnson said.