Armed with a handgun and wearing an electronic tracking bracelet on his ankle, Herring crept up on Flisk and former CHA police officer Stephen Peters in the alley on the 8100 block of South Burnham and shot both men dead, it's alleged.
Prosecutors charged him with the first degree murder of both men Monday, marking the end of a 72-hour round-the-clock effort to find justice for Peters and Flisk, the fifth Chicago cop murdered this year.
Flisk's fellow officers “worked non-stop, even in the face of extreme grief,” Supt. Jody Weis said as he announced the charges against Herring and an alleged accomplice, Timothy Willis, who's charged with unlawful use of a weapon and is accused of helping Herring cover up the murders.
“All of Chicago owes them a debt of gratitude as they helped get a killer off the streets,” Weis said.
Herring was sentenced to six years behind bars for an armed robbery in 2007 but was released in April on parole. He was locked up again in July after testing positive for marijuana, according to Illinois Department of Corrections spokeswoman Sharyn Elman.
On Sept. 14, Herring was freed again to his home, across the alley from Friday's murder scene, records show.
During his brief period of freedom over the summer, Herring tried to kill another man, according to new charges also filed Monday. On June 18, Herring tried to kill 41-year-old Fernando Townsend just a block from where Flisk and Peters were shot, authorities alleged.
On Friday, Herring allegedly broke into Peters' mother's garage during the early hours. He returned later to collect stolen parts from Peters' prized red Ford Mustang that he'd stashed in garbage cans.
It was then that he allegedly encountered Flisk, who was investigating the burglary, and Peters, who was guiding Flisk around the crime scene, police said. Both men were armed but neither “had a chance to defend himself” before Herring shot them, Weis said.
After killing the men, Herring called his girlfriend and told her to come over, a source said. He then asked her to get rid of his gun, saying he had just shot two people, the source said.
Herring was arrested Saturday, when his home was also searched.
Herring had every reason to fear Flisk's expertise at a crime scene. A meticulous and skilled forensics man, Flisk put away countless bad guys and was about to be commended for cracking the case of a serial burglar who targeted the Beverly community this summer, his co-workers said Monday as they paid tribute to his skill, determination and sense of humor.
At a crime scene, Flisk could “think like the offender and place himself there and know where they put their hands, and dust there and come up with quality stuff,” said fellow evidence technician John Murphy. Flisk used so much powder in his search for clues that Murphy once came back from a scene with him looking “like a glazed donut,” Murphy laughed.
But Flisk was humble enough that his locker was full of commendations he'd never taken home or told his wife or four kids about, colleagues said. The family was presented with a check for $15,000 Monday, the first installment of a $50,000 donation made by the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation and the Hundred Club of Chicago.
“We've really lost a good officer,” Lt. Bob Dubiel said, adding that Flisk's death shows there are no safe jobs in the Chicago Police Department.
Peters' family was certainly grateful for the efforts that saw Herring charged.
“We've known his family for years,” Peters' father Robert Peters said, adding that Peters' mother often said hello to Herring's uncle when she saw him in the street.
“He left a lot of evidence behind, but we're very, very, glad they caught him.”
Peters' family also thanked Townsend, whom Herring allegedly tried to kill in June, for contacting police after Friday's murders.
Speaking Monday, Townsend alleged Herring shot him as he was standing outside his home on the 8000 block of Burnham this summer. Townsend, who was hospitalized for a month and walks with a cane as result of the shooting, said he didn't identify Herring to police at the time because his mother was afraid of reprisals.
But “when I heard what happened to Stephen I had to do something,” he said. “I hope he never gets out...I hope he gets the death penalty.”
http://www.suntimes.com/news/24-7/2930732,cop-death-charges-112910.article
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Here's another related story:
Chicago officer slain while investigating car break-in
Evidence technician is 6th Chicago cop to die violently this year
by Annie Sweeney
Chicago
Tribune
November 26, 2010
The line of squad cars, blue lights twinkling in the late afternoon, snaked through downtown, signaling tragic news for Chicago — for the fifth time in six months and the second time this week, a Chicago police officer had been shot and killed.
Stunned shoppers on Black Friday stared as a line of squad cars began to escort the body of Officer Michael Flisk from Northwestern Memorial Hospital on the Near North Side to the Cook County medical examiner's office on the Near West Side .
Flisk, 46, an evidence technician who was two months from celebrating 20 years on the job, had been shot in the head about four hours earlier in a South Side alley where he was investigating a burglary. A 44-year-old man who had called police after his car was broken into was also shot and killed.
News of Flisk's slaying set the department reeling, leaving officers crying in the cold night outside the Cook County morgue and a South Side family of police officers remembering the brother who took on the caretaker role for his brothers and sisters.
"He was the one who kind of smoothed everything over with everybody,'' said Gina Flisk, a sister-in-law of the officer, a married father of four. "He wasn't the oldest, but he was the one who kind of took care of making everybody happy."
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Flisk was the sixth Chicago police officer to die violently this year. A sergeant died in a car crash in February while responding to a burglary. Since May, four other officers — all off-duty — had been gunned down. The latest of those killings took place just four days earlier when Officer David Blake was found slain in his SUV. No arrests have been made in that killing.
A longtime officer who heads up the patrol officers union called 2010 the deadliest year for Chicago cops in recent memory.
"There hasn't been a year this bad since the 1960s," said Mark Donahue, president of the Fraternal Order of Police. Officers "are just trying to cope," he said.
Flisk's job as an evidence technician is one of the unheralded but critical roles in the department. Technicians arrive at a scene — often alone — after a crime has been committed to comb for evidence that could lead to an arrest. They rarely get the accolades when their work helps solve murders, rapes and even burglaries.
But the job usually keeps them from the front-line danger many officers face daily.
"It was supposed to keep him safer,'' neighbor Pauline Lewellyn, sobbing in her Beverly kitchen, said of his promotion to evidence technician 31/2 years ago.
Flisk, who was in uniform and driving a marked squad car, was called to a burglary in the 8100 block of South Burnham Avenue on Friday afternoon. The owner of a Mustang GT — identified by his sister as Stephen Peters — had discovered that his car had been broken into in the garage.
Peters called police to report the burglary just after noon, police said, and Flisk was dispatched about half an hour later. Resident said they heard gunshots at about 1:30 p.m. Arriving minutes later, officers found Flisk and Peters lying in the alley mortally wounded from gunfire.
What happened in that hour or how the shootings unfolded was still unclear Friday night.
Peters, who once worked as a police officer for the Chicago Housing Authority , was a married father of three and a car aficionado known as " Superman '' in a Mustang car club, said his sister, Pamela Reed . She described her brother as a hard-working Army veteran who worked for AT&T.
Reed said her mother heard four shots from inside her home — in two different bursts. She then looked out the window.
"She saw my brother lying out in the alley dead," Reed said.
In the aftermath of the shootings, Chicago police literally sealed off the South Chicago neighborhood with crime scene tape and squad cars and began an aggressive search of alleys and trash bins, using dogs. SWAT officers and tactical teams — some carrying M4 rifles — swarmed the area. Motorists and pedestrians were stopped and questioned or asked for identification.
"We will squeeze that neighborhood, and we will find the people who did this,'' a visibly tense police Superintendent Jody Weis said outside Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Police announced a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Flisk's murderer.
Flisk came from a family that dedicated their lives to public safety. All but one of Flisk's four siblings were also Chicago police officers. Their father, also named Michael, retired after about three decades with the Chicago Fire Department .
In his Beverly home, Flisk was a neighbor who fixed cars and organized block parties. He was a regular at his son's baseball games. He "wore his heart on his sleeve," one neighbor said.
His marriage was one that others admired too. Neighbors recalled last Christmas when his wife bought Flisk a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and his two boys wheeled it down the street for him.
Late Friday inside the Flisk home, friends and relatives had gathered around the family in quiet support. Outside, neighbors cried and carried hot coffee to the house.
For one neighbor, her last image of Flisk was him raking leaves in the front of his house the other day.
Lewellyn said she kidded him that he should have his children doing the chore.
He just laughed and kept raking.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-cop-shot-1127-20101126-20,0,4808117,full.story
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