A convicted felon was charged Wednesday in the fatal shooting of Chicago Police Officer Enrique Martinez that erupted during a traffic stop earlier this week in Chatham on the South Side and also claimed the life of a motorist.
Darion McMillian, 23, of Harvey, faces first-degree murder charges in Monday night's killings in the 8000 block of South Ingleside Street.
Police Larry Snelling told reporters at Public Safety Headquarters. McMillian used a handgun equipped with an extended magazine and modified to fire automatically, Snelling said.
“On Monday night, our department and our city lost a hero when Officer Enrique Martinez was shot and killed while protecting the city of Chicago,” Snelling said. “Today is the first step in bringing his killer to justice.”
McMillian also faces felony charges of attempted murder of a police officer, burglary, possession of an automatic weapon and possession of a handgun as a felon, Snelling said.
Chicago Police Officer Enrique Martinez was shot and killed during a traffic stop in the Chatham neighborhood on Monday. Mayor Brandon Johnson said Martinez “courageously protected this city.”
Chicago Police Department
Mayor Brandon Johnson and Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx joined Snelling to announce the charges.
The second person taken into custody was released after investigators determined he “was not involved in the killing of our officer,” Chief of Detectives Antoinette Orsetti said.
Martinez and his partner attempted to stop the vehicle around 8 p.m. Monday and were assisted by other officers in the area, Orsetti said. When Martinez and his partner spoke to the driver, they noticed McMillian reaching for a bag and ordered him to stop, police said. That's when McMillian opened fire, striking Martinez and the driver several times, police said.
McMillian then pushed the driver out of the car and tried to drive in reverse while an officer tried to pull him out, Orsetti said. The officer was pulled from the vehicle and his gun fired into the ground, police said.
After crashing the car into a parked car, McMillian ran to an apartment where a woman was inside, Orsetti said. He used a knife to cut the electronic monitoring bracelet and fled to the 8000 block of South Maryland Street, where he was taken into custody.
Orsetti said she hopes securing charges will bring “a small amount of comfort knowing that the person responsible for his murder will face justice.”
Martinez “saved lives, even though he knew it might cost him his life,” Johnson said.
“This exemplifies what our police officers do every day,” Johnson said. “They know the sacrifices and risks involved in their profession, but they still work every day to protect us.”
Chicago police work the scene in which Officer Enrique Martinez was shot and killed in the 8000 block of South Ingleside Avenue in the Chatham neighborhood, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024.
Tyler Basiak Larivière/Sun-Times
The alleged shooter is already facing charges
McMillian was placed on electronic monitoring in Will County after his recent arrest in Chicago.
The Will County Sheriff's Office issued an arrest warrant for McMillian last month, and he was charged with a felony, accused of attempting to thwart a drug test, according to court records and Orsetti. At the time, McMillian was facing felony cannabis charges.
Chicago police arrested him on Oct. 11 on an arrest warrant, court records show. After he was released under electronic monitoring in the new case, Will County prosecutors sought to detain him pending trial on cannabis charges. This case continued on October 28.
McMillian previously pleaded guilty to a felony charge of aggravated discharge of a firearm in May 2021, records show.
While detained in prison in this case, he was subjected to further criminal charges stemming from a gang attack on another inmate. He pleaded guilty to a battery charge that was reduced from a felony to a misdemeanor on the same day as the other plea deal.
McMillian was sentenced to four years in prison in the shooting and mandatory supervised release, records show. He was fined and ordered to pay court costs in the other case.
Snelling insisted that McMillian “should not have been on our streets with a fully automatic weapon.”
“We should all be angry at violent criminals who create endless cycles of trauma in our communities,” he said. “We need to be outraged by the proliferation of weapons that are killing our residents, our children and our first responders.”
He recalled other young officers killed in the line of duty in recent years: Luis Huesca, Ariana Preston, Andres Vásquez Lasso, and Ella French.
Fox noted that she appeared at a similar press conference last week to discuss the officers who were shot but unharmed. Like Snelling, she blamed Chicago's intractable violence on what she called “gun overreach.”
“We need sensible, common-sense gun legislation on a national level that has an impact here in Cook County,” she said.
