Sources: Different Officer May Have Been Targeted When Chicago Cop Was Slain
CHICAGO (CBS)-- Four people were in police custody Friday in connection with last week's fatal shooting of Chicago police officer Clifton Lewis, and one detainee has been charged in an unrelated crime, sources tell CBS 2.
Lewis, 41, was gunned down in an Austin convenience store four days after Christmas as he was working off-duty as a security guard.
Sources say tips given to the officers led police to three of the men, while a fourth was picked up during a routine traffic stop. Meanwhile, CBS 2 sources are shedding new light on a possible motive.
About two weeks before the shooting, sources say another police officer, who also worked at M & M Quick Foods, 1201 N. Austin Blvd., had an altercation with members of a gang while he was on duty as an officer.
The gang members knew the officer also worked security at the store. On the day Lewis was shot, he had switched shifts with that officer.
Sources say it appears to be a case of mistaken identity, with the suspects thinking Lewis was the man they were trying to target.
Police sources who have seen the store surveillance video say two men entered the store while a driver waited outside in an alley.
As the two mask-wearing men entered the store, they put their hoods over their heads. The first shooter, with a Tec-9 semiautomatic handgun under his coat, fired two shots at Officer Lewis.
Lewis was able to fire two shots back before he fell to the ground. The second man jumped up on the counter, then fired two more shots at Lewis while the officer was on the ground.
After that, both men robbed the store of a few things leaving hundreds of dollars behind and then ran out, sources said.
Sources say the police in the Austin area have been working tirelessly and have made numerous arrests for other crimes through routine traffic stops.
The Sun-Times reported Friday that one detainee is a 34-year-old parolee who was ordered held without bond on an unrelated gun charge.
On Friday, the parolee appeared in Cook County Criminal Court where he was ordered held without bond on a charge of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon.
The man, whom the Sun-Times is not naming because he is not charged in Lewis' murder, was in a car that was stopped Tuesday for an improper turn signal. A .357-caliber handgun with two live rounds was found in a cup-holder, prosecutors said.
The man, who wore a dark jacket and held a Cubs hat behind his back in court, was on parole for home invasion and has been convicted of seven other felonies, prosecutors said.
