Thursday, June 19, 2008 9:40 PM CDT
Crime spree suspects still months away from trial
By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
hmeeker@jg-tc.com
A year after the shooting death of a Douglas County law officer, a trial for the accused still is at least eight months away.
Willie Thompson, 28, of Chicago faces trial on Feb. 9, 2009, for the murder of Douglas County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Tommy L. Martin and dozens of other counts from the incidents on June 21, 2007, that involved robbery, carjacking and hostage-taking. Yusef Kareem Brown, 25, also will face trial on murder-related and multiple criminal counts after Thompson.
Thompson, the alleged shooter in the case, is facing the death penalty, and Douglas County State’s Attorney Kevin Nolan said that’s one reason the case is moving at a deliberate pace.
“Because it is a capital crime case, all attorneys have to certify they are ready to go to trial. Right now, we believe we’re ready for trial by February,” said Nolan of the proceedings that will be held in Macon County due to a change of venue.
Another factor in the scheduling of the cases is the volume of evidence testing as requested by defense attorneys, Nolan said.
“The state crime lab is excellent and doing prompt work, but there is a large volume of evidence in this case,” he said.
Some of the evidence might relate to a murder in Chicago. The vehicle driven by the suspects to Douglas County was allegedly stolen from Arnie Graves of Chicago. His mutilated body was found in a Chicago apartment on the day of the standoff in Arcola.
Court documents show nearly 200 potential witnesses are listed for the prosecution.
“What we have here in this case is different crime scenes. Will I call that many witnesses? Probably not. I do not have a concrete idea of how many will testify at this point,” Nolan said.
One of the robbery victims and a potential witness, Ryan Riddell, was found dead a few months ago in Edgar County. That crime is not believed to be linked to the Douglas County incidents, according to law enforcement officials.
While Nolan pursues justice, officers involved with the case are looking back in personal ways on that fateful day.
Douglas County Sheriff Charlie McGrew recalls June 21 as the day he faced one of the toughest decisions in his long career as a law enforcement officer.
While he was involved in the effort to bring a bank hostage standoff to a peaceful end, his chief deputy and longtime friend, Martin, was in an Urbana hospital emergency room after being shot twice that day.
“That was kind of hard that I couldn’t get up to him at the hospital,” McGrew said. “Some of our deputies were on the scene when they put Tommy in the ambulance. And our dispatchers handled the call when he said he needed help after being shot. But that is part of this business. We have a responsibility in those situations and we have to fulfill it. You put your emotions aside.”
Champaign police and sheriff’s department officers went to the hospital and helped comfort Martin’s loved ones that day while his fellow officers remained in Arcola.
“That was such a relief to me. They immediately went to the emergency room. They all knew him and worked with him through the years,” McGrew recalled.
Martin died a few weeks later from his wounds.
The level of cooperation on the day of the crime spree was overwhelming, McGrew said.
“It is really amazing the kind of help that came to Arcola that day. A lot of people came without a request,” he said.
The responders involved law officers, emergency medical services employees, street workers, Red Cross volunteers and more. And despite some temporary setbacks, the effort proved overwhelmingly successful, said McGrew, a retired Illinois State Police officer.
“We’ve had debriefings to try to improve or fine-tune future situations like this. There are some lessons to be learned, but when the the situation ends like this did with no hostages being harmed it is obvious we did a lot more things right than wrong,” McGrew said.
One major regret is that one of the suspects managed to escape arrest and reached First Mid-Illinois Bank a short distance from where the vehicle chase ended.
“In the future, we definitely want to take any person into custody before he gets into any occupied area,” McGrew said.
Some second-guessing has come on how the initial traffic stop did not turn into a chase when the suspects drove away from a state police traffic stop.
That traffic stop regarded tinted windows in the suspects’ vehicle, not a felony offense as defined under the state police pursuit policy.
“Police administrators are faced with legal liability if you will be sued if you do pursue and something happens and sued if you do not pursue and something happens,” McGrew said. “The question is when a person drives away from a traffic stop, are you endangering the public more or less by giving chase?”
Contact Herb Meeker at hmeeker@jg-tc.com or 238-6869.
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idclaire wrote on Jun 19, 2008 10:26 PM: