KANKAKEE,
Ill. -- A police officer who was killed at a northern Illinois hotel
pleaded for her life before a man allegedly shot her with her own gun
after she was disarmed during a struggle, a prosecutor said.
Bradley
police Sgt. Marlene Rittmanic and her partner, Officer Tyler Bailey,
were shot on Dec. 29 while investigating a noise complaint
regarding dogs barking in a parked car outside a Comfort Inn. Bailey
remained hospitalized Monday and is “fighting for his life,” Kankakee
County State’s Attorney Jim Rowe said during a bond hearing for
Xandria Harris.
Rowe
said during Monday's hearing that Harris' co-defendant, 25-year-old
Darius Sullivan, had his own gun and used it to shoot Bailey in the
head after the officers knocked on the pair's hotel room door, the
Chicago Sun-Times reported. Rowe said Sullivan then allegedly shot
at Rittmanic as she tried to run away before he chased her down a
hallway and pinned her against a door. As Sullivan and Rittmanic
scuffled, he said Sullivan called out to Harris and she helped him
disarm Rittmanic.
Rowe said the encounter was captured on Rittmanic’s body camera.
He said Sullivan and Harris then allegedly stood over Rittmanic pointing guns at her as she lay on the floor, already shot once.
“Sgt.
Rittmanic was pleading with them to, ‘Just leave, you don’t have to do
this, please just go, please don’t, please don’t,’” Rowe said. “She was
desperately pleading for her life.”
While Harris held Sullivan’s
gun, Sullivan allegedly fired two shots from what prosecutors believe to
be Rittmanic’s gun, striking the sergeant in the neck area, Rowe said.
Sullivan
and Harris are charged with fatally shooting Rittmanic, 49, and
critically wounding Bailey, 27. Sullivan, who was arrested in Indiana,
is fighting extradition to Illinois.
Rowe
said his office will seek life sentences on the state charges. He has
asked the Justice Department to review the case with the intention of
pursuing federal death penalty charges. Illinois is not a death penalty
state.
Rowe said in a news release that there is “recent
precedent" for pursuing the federal death penalty for the murder of a
law enforcement officer and also precedent for pursuing it in “non-death
penalty states.”
A message seeking additional comment was left for Rowe on Tuesday by The Associated Press.