Illinois police to examine video in cop killing probe
Authorities believe they've recovered video that will help the investigation into who killed a police officer in northern Illinois.
Lake County Major Crime Task Force Cmdr. George Filenko told reporters Thursday that a private resident came forward with the video from a home security system.
Investigators have not yet viewed it because it's on a hard drive that requires specialized technology to process. So, it's been turned over to the Department of Homeland Security.
Filenko says the resident told investigators it shows three people near the scene of Tuesday's killing in the village of Fox Lake and he is hopeful it will provide "significant" evidence.
Authorities are searching for three men in the killing of Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz. The 30-year police veteran was shot Tuesday morning in the village of Fox Lake, while pursuing three suspicious men he spotted on his way to work, authorities say. Gliniewicz told dispatchers the three ran into a swampy area, and he requested a second unit.
Dispatchers soon lost contact with him. Backup officers found him about 50 yards from his squad car with a gunshot wound. He died soon after.
Earlier, a false report sent dozens of officers scrambling through a cornfield at night in hopes of finding the suspects wanted in the fatal shooting.
The report came from a woman who phoned police late Wednesday night to say that two men tried to get inside her car while she was stopped on the side of the road because of car trouble. The caller said the two men, spooked that she was calling police, fled into a cornfield. Sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement officers, aided by helicopters and dogs, spent five hours searching the area in the community of Volo, near the village of Fox Lake, where Tuesday's killing took place.
Eventually, the caller told authorities she made up the story because she wanted attention from a family that employed her as a nanny, said Lake County Sheriff's Office spokesman Christopher Covelli. The 30-year-old woman, Kristin B. Kiefer of Vernon Hills, was charged with disorderly conduct and falsifying a police report and is being held at the Lake County Jail. It was not clear whether she already had an attorney who could comment on her behalf.
At a Wednesday evening vigil, Gliniewicz's wife, Mel, and their four sons took to a stage to roaring applause.
"Joe was my best friend, my world, my hero, the love of my life for the last 26 and a half years," she told a crowd of hundreds of people while struggling to hold back tears. Participants lit candles and released a sky lantern.
Authorities have broadened the hunt for the three men after an initial focus in the area of the shooting turned up nothing.