P.O. Eddie Jones #11120

Officer Eddie Jones, Jr. and his partner conducted a narcotics investigation. After making the arrest, the offender stated that he would lead Officer Jones and his partner to his drug source. The informant, in the back seat of the police vehicle, suddenly drew a concealed weapon and fired. Officer Jones and his partner were both wounded. Officer Jones died as a result of his injuries.
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Officer Jones is buried at Oakwoods Cemetery
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Cop Slain, Partner Hit Nab Suspect
Chicago Tribune January 08, 1991|By David Silverman and Monica Copeland.
January 08, 1991|By David Silverman and Monica Copeland. Tribune reporters Paige Laakso, Linnet Myers, Lisa Newman and William Recktenwald contributed to this article.

Chicago police took a suspect into custody late Monday for the fatal shooting of one police officer and the wounding of a second in their squad car earlier in the day.

Police said the two officers were shot in the back of the head by a man they had arrested for a narcotics violation, booked at a police station and then taken back out on the street because he offered to lead them to his source. The shooting occurred in the parking lot outside Fair Play Foods, 2200 S. Western Ave. The suspect was carrying a handgun ``secreted on his person,`` Supt. LeRoy Martin said.
Killed was Patrolman Eddie Jones Jr., 28, of the South Side. Jones was married and had been on the Police Department since 1986. He was pronounced dead at Cook County Hospital at 5:23 p.m. In critical but stable condition at Mt. Sinai Hospital Medical Center was Patrolman Dennis Dobson, 30, a resident of the Ogden Park neighborhood on the South Side. Both were assigned to the Marquette District tactical unit.
The killer escaped with a .45-caliber handgun that he took from Dobson after the shooting. The suspect was arrested about 6 1/2 hours later at 3121 W. 15th St., but neither Dobson`s handgun nor the gun used to shoot Dobson and Jones was immediately recovered.
Shortly after the shooting, police identified the man they were looking for as Alexis Green, 23, also known as Tony Brown. Police spokeswoman Tina Vicini said Jones and Dobson, who were in plainclothes and driving an unmarked car, had arrested Green at 16th Street and Kedzie Avenue. He was charged with possession of a controlled substance.

Deputy Police Supt. Edward Wodnicki described the initial arrest as ``routine police procedure by two very active officers.`` According to John Dineen, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, the officers had booked Green at the Marquette District station and fingerprinted him and then brought him back out on the street because he offered to direct them to ``a better bust.`` ``They took him in, but it seems they were offered something better,`` Dineen said. ``You always try to move up to something bigger. . . . You follow up any way you can. That`s the way the game is played.`` Wodnicki said the prisoner had offered to lead the two officers to ``the source`` of his drugs.

Jones and Dobson were taking the prisoner to the alleged source when they were shot in the parking lot. Investigators did not know why the officers had stopped in the lot. ``We`re dealing with a man who pulled a concealed weapon while he was handcuffed, shot both officers, retrieved one of the officer`s guns and the keys to the handcuffs, released himself and escaped,`` Wodnicki said.
Wodnicki said the prisoner was in the back seat of the squad car, handcuffed with his hands in front of him before the shooting. Martin said the officers probably had frisked the suspect earlier but missed the gun. Officers in the Marquette station said the suspect may have had a gun hidden in his boot.

The shootings led to an extensive manhunt on the West Side. Many off-duty officers took part as volunteers. Dr. Phillip Zaret, director of emergency medicine at Mt. Sinai, said a large-caliber bullet, perhaps .45-caliber, entered the back of Dobson`s scalp and lodged in the right side of his neck.
``He is alert and in good spirits. He has not been informed of his partner`s death. It appears that there will be no neurological damage, no paralysis. The bullet is lodged in the neck, and we may well elect to leave the bullet in place,`` Zaret said. The doctor said if the bullet had entered a centimeter or two to the left, Dobson could have been killed or paralyzed. Dobson is married and the father of three children.

The search for the suspect ranged to the Far South Side and north to Madison Street. Wodnicki said friends and enemies of Green phoned police to ``pinpoint his location during the search.`` Police also contacted relatives of Green to find him.

Early in the evening, police converged on the area around 21st Street and Sawyer Avenue after the suspect was reported to have been seen there. Metra commuter trains on the Burlington Northern tracks were delayed while police searched the area.

Officers assigned to the tactical units, as Jones and Dobson were, sometimes call themselves the ``blue jean police`` because of their manner of dress. Tactical unit officers handle many of the most dangerous assignments. They regularly respond to calls regarding guns and violence and do much less of the routine police work.

Last July, Martin said, ``Our officers are coming under fire far more frequently than any other times since I`ve been on the force.`` He attributed the violence to the drug trade.
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The offender was caught during the manhunt after the shootings. He was tried and convicted of the murder of Officer Jones. He is serving a life sentence at Joliet State Prison.