Man arrested in the fatal shooting of a Chicago police officer during a traffic stop

CHICAGO– A 23-year-old man has been charged with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a Chicago police officer during a traffic stop on the city’s South Side.

The man will appear in court Thursday and also faces separate charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder of a police officer, residential burglary and weapons violations, Police Chief Larry Snelling told reporters Wednesday.

Officer Enrique Martinez was shot Monday around 8 p.m. after he and other officers conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle blocking traffic. While Martinez and his partner were talking to the driver, a man in the front passenger seat was seen reaching for a bag on the floor, Detective Chief Antoinette Ursitti said.

The officers ordered him to stop, but the man pulled out a handgun — equipped with a machine gun conversion device and an extended magazine — and fired at Martinez, striking the officer and the driver, Ursitti said.

The man then pushed the driver out of the car and drove away, dragging another officer for a distance. After crashing into a parked car, he ran into an apartment, grabbed a knife and cut off a court-ordered electronic monitor. A woman in the apartment was not injured.

He was caught a short time later after running away from the apartment.

Martinez was pronounced dead at a hospital. The driver of the vehicle also died.

Authorities said they later found the converted pistol and another handgun. A third man who was in the backseat of the vehicle was also arrested but released after investigators determined he was not involved in the shooting, Ursitti said.

Ursitti said the suspected shooter was released from jail as a condition of a previous arrest for attempting to cheat on a drug and alcohol screening test.

“This person should not have been on the street with a fully automatic weapon,” Snelling said, adding that pistols converted to fire fully automatically put officers at a disadvantage.

“Our officers did everything they could to prevent this from escalating into something else,” Snelling said. “As a result of the weapon this individual had, our officers were outgunned. They are converting these pistols into portable machine guns, and the ability to kill someone is increasing. The possibility of shooting more people at the same time becomes much greater.”

Martinez, 26, was approaching his three-year anniversary on the force.

“Officer Martinez was killed by the violence he was trying to stop,” Snelling continued. “We should be outraged by the proliferation of weapons that are killing our residents, our children and our first responders.”

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is investigating the shooting.