April 27--Chicago police Officer Michael Flisk seemingly wasn't working a particularly dangerous job when he pulled into a South Chicago neighborhood alley early in the afternoon a day after Thanksgiving in 2010 to dust for prints and photograph evidence on a garage burglary.
But Flisk, a 46-year-old married father of four, never made it out of the alley. He became the fifth officer killed in six months, the second that week, in a year that was the deadliest for Chicago police officers in decades.
Stephen "Drew" Peters, 44, a former Chicago Housing Authority officer whose red Mustang GT had been stripped of its stereo, was also gunned down.
On Monday, the teenage parolee and suspected burglar who allegedly shot both men is scheduled to go on trial at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
His alleged motive was dumbfounding -- prosecutors say Timothy Herring Jr., now 24, had broken into Peters' car and shot both men to avoid returning to prison on a burglary charge after learning Flisk had found fingerprints. He was still wearing an electronic ankle monitor at the time after serving half of a six-year prison sentence for a 2007 armed robbery of a liquor store.
But instead of a maximum sentence of 14 years on a burglary charge, Herring now faces mandatory natural life in prison if convicted of both killings.
Flisk's own crime scene photos are expected to be key evidence at the trial, as well as shell casings police linked to an earlier shooting and incriminating statements Herring allegedly made to four women soon after the killings.
Prosecutors also want to use a disturbing 911 call Peters' mom made after seeing her son lying in a pool of blood. That call captured the sound of the final two shots being fired. Herring allegedly shot both a second time in the head after noticing one victim still moving.
They also plan to use Herring's own words against him, including a phone call from Cook County Jail in which prosecutors said he assured his girlfriend that authorities never found his gun before quickly trying to drop his link to the weapon.
"I know who didn't (expletive) see me do (expletive)," he was quoted as saying in the October 2012 call to his girlfriend, who was concerned Herring was never coming home. "I know they ain't got my gun. I mean, excuse me, I know they ain't got no gun. Let me say that better."
Opening statements are scheduled to take place Monday after a jury was selected last week. The trial is expected to last about two weeks in Judge Mary Margaret Brosnahan's courtroom. Herring is charged with seven counts of first-degree murder and a single count of burglary, according to prosecutors.
Flisk, who had 20 years on the job, had been promoted to evidence technician about 31/2 years before his killing.
Two years after his death, his family dedicated a shrine in his honor for police officers and firefighters at St. Rita of Cascia Shrine Chapel, where Flisk's funeral had taken place, said the Rev. Tom McCarthy.
"It's a senseless tragedy," McCarthy said in a telephone interview Friday. "He was a very good man trying to provide for his family, trying to do his job. He was devoted to his wife and kids."
In the years since the shrine opened, many police officers have come to pray for wisdom in carrying out their jobs, some even asking McCarthy to bless their service firearms, he said.
Prosecutors say that on Nov. 26, 2010, Herring was at the home of Tranay Smith, smoking marijuana with her and Diamond Owens before the women dropped him off near Peters' home. Prosecutors allege Herring had been planning to "hit (Peters) for his sounds" for months. On that day, he allegedly removed items from his neighbor's customized car, putting them in boxes in garbage bins on the street in the 8100 block of South Burnham Avenue.
About 12:30 p.m. that day, Peters told his mother, Laura, that his car had been burglarized. Flisk, in uniform and driving a marked police car, was dispatched to Peters' home, parking in an alley near the garage.
He took photographs of car speakers, wires and other items, including a rearview monitor box that had been left in city garbage bins next to the garage, according to a court filing by prosecutors. An Illinois State Police forensic scientist later linked a print on the rearview monitor box to Herring, the filing said.
A neighbor told authorities Peters had told him he expected the burglar would soon return because of the items left behind, Assistant State's Attorney Thomas Mahoney said last week in court. Soon after their conversation, the man said he heard two shots, followed by another two shots.
Prosecutors allege that Herring claimed to know who was involved in the burglary when he saw Flisk speaking with Peters, but Peters told him it didn't matter because the evidence technician had already found a usable print.
Herring allegedly turned around as if to walk away as Flisk was about to dust the Mustang for prints but he spun back and shot them both in the head, prosecutors said. He left momentarily but returned when he realized neither man was dead and shot them both again, they alleged.
Soon after the shooting, Herring contacted Smith, who drove with Owens and picked him up in an alley not far from the crime scene, prosecutors said.
"He was freaking," Mahoney quoted Owens as testifying to a grand jury.
Smith drove back to her house, where Herring confided he'd just killed "two polices" before grabbing a pair of scissors and cutting his braids off, prosecutors said. As he removed his jacket, a gun fell out of his waistband, the women told authorities.
Herring told the women he wondered if the police car was equipped with a camera and discussed ways to remove the electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle.
Herring put his braids and gun -- described by Smith as large, chrome and equipped with a laser sight -- in a bag and told the women to keep it for safekeeping. The women then dropped Herring off at a barber shop, prosecutors said.
Herring called Smith later and said that a friend named "Dark-Skinned Tim" would pick up the bag, prosecutors said. She gave him the bag when he arrived, they said.
Timothy Willis pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in 2013 and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, court records show.
Police never found the gun, jacket or braids.
Herring allegedly said in a jailhouse phone conversation that he could beat the case if Smith didn't testify against him.
"If the (expletive) Tranay don't come to this trial, I'm decent," he said, according to the transcript of a December 2014 court hearing.
In a key break in the case, four spent 9 mm cartridges found at the crime scene were matched to a shooting five months earlier in the same neighborhood, prosecutors said. The victim in that shooting, Fernando Townsend, had identified Herring as the gunman but declined to cooperate with the investigation because his mother feared retaliation if he did. Charges were never filed, a fact that Townsend lamented after his close friend, Peters, and the officer were gunned down.
His mother relented after the two murders, and Townsend testified to a grand jury about Herring shooting him in June 2010.
"Now I am a voice for Steve," Townsend told a Tribune reporter soon after the killings. "I can help him."
Prosecutors planned to call him at trial, but Townsend died in Florida in 2013, according to a court filing by Herring's lawyers.
Now prosecutors intend to read his grand jury testimony to jurors.
sschmadeke@tribpub.com
