Thread: Mundelein fugitive killed in Nebraska

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/loca ... 7859.story




Mundelein fugitive killed
Gunman caught, slain by cops in Nebraska

By Lisa Black and Andrew L. Wang, Tribune staff reporters. Tribune staff reporter Jeff Coen contributed to this report

June 7, 2006

A day after he shot and injured his two landlords when they tried to evict him, a fugitive from Mundelein was killed by police Tuesday as he fled west on a Nebraska highway, authorities said.

Hermelindo Rivas, 38, who police said wounded a man and a woman in a house Monday night in the 800 block of Lange Street in Mundelein, was found by the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, said Tim Weber, a task force inspector.

The task force alerted the Nebraska State Patrol, which tried to stop Rivas as he headed west on Interstate Highway 80 near Elm Creek, about 150 miles west of Lincoln, Weber said.

When Rivas didn't pull over, police laid down a spike strip, which blew out the tires of his vehicle, said Mike Meyer, spokesman for the state patrol.

Rivas got out of the vehicle with a gun, fired at troopers and was shot and killed. No police officers were hurt, Weber said.

Officials were able to use investigative tools to locate Rivas, according to Nebraska police.

Mundelein Police Chief Raymond Rose said Martina Santos, 32, whom Rivas shot once in the abdomen and once in the leg, is in guarded condition at Condell Medical Center in Libertyville. Abiel Alvarado, 51, was released from the hospital after being shot once in the right shoulder.

Santos' 8-year-old son, who also lives at the address, saw the shooting, police said.

Neighbors said Santos is Alvarado's sister-in-law.

Rose said Rivas was fleeing to California to stay with relatives when he was killed. A warrant for his arrest had been issued Tuesday, charging him with two counts of attempted murder and two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm.

Rivas worked in Arlington Heights as a car mechanic and moved into the home on Lange Street about three months ago after answering a newspaper ad, Rose said.

On Monday, the owners told him to vacate the room because they had sold the house, Rose said.

"He was told to leave [Monday] and had started moving stuff out," Rose said. "There was a discussion about him leaving and the condition he left the room in."

Rivas allegedly returned to the home about 11:30 p.m. and shot both victims, one of whom called police.

Early Tuesday, police cordoned off Illinois Highway 176 between Illinois Highway 83 and Midlothian Road as they searched for Rivas at a house in the 20600 block of Park Avenue, where two of his three vehicles were located.

During the search, residents were evacuated from three nearby homes and police told dozens of other neighbors to remain inside.

A woman who was evacuated from her home was treated on the scene for a stress-related condition, said her son, Manuel Cavazos.

"They got scared," said Cavazos, adding that his father looked out into his back yard to see men with guns. "My mother has asthma and couldn't breathe."

Ruth Chamberlin woke about 6 a.m. to the sound of helicopters above her house.

"I thought, who in the heck is mowing this early in the morning?" she said.

She stepped out of her front door and saw a police officer, who said they were searching for a fugitive and told her to go into her basement.

By 9 a.m., the area was opened to traffic again.

Rose said he does not believe that Rivas, who had several aliases, was a legal U.S. citizen or a registered gun owner. Authorities were unaware of any criminal history under this name. Rivas was identified using the Mexican driver's license he had with him.

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lblack@tribune.com

alwang@tribune.com

http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/news ... OLO_S1.htm

Cell phone use tracked shooter
• State troopers: Wireless calls pinpointed suspect

By Frank Abderholden
STaff Writer

MUNDELEIN — Little did Hermelindo Rivas know that whenever he used his cellular telephone he was giving away his general location to police.

Nebraska State Patrol confirmed Wednesday that technology was used that tracked Rivas through his cellular telephone and that he was heading to California to his sister's house.

Rivas was wanted for shooting a man and a woman in Mundelein.

Nebraska State Patrol officers were able to pinpoint his general location on Interstate 80 and then a trooper in a vehicle spotted Rivas in his red Isuzu Trooper, one of four vehicles he owned.

"It only worked when he was making a telephone call," said Lt. Norbert Liebig. A state trooper spotted the vehicle and tried to make a traffic stop on I-80 in a rural part of Nebraska, but Rivas refused to stop.

Troopers placed two sets of spikes down on the interstate, which was shut down for nearly seven hours beginning at 3 p.m.

After running over the first set, Rivas continued to drive on the SUV's tire rims, but he slowed to 55 mph, said Liebig. When Rivas hit the second strip of spikes, he finally pulled over, he added.

The chase, which never reached speeds of 75 mph, went on for about 14 miles.

"He was asked to step out of the vehicle and he refused," said Liebig. "Negotiations went down the tube," he said, noting there were four officers on the scene.

When Rivas exited the SUV he brandished a gun, refused to drop it and fired once at the officers; they returned fire. Liebig said he did not know how many times Rivas was hit by bullets fired by the troopers. An autopsy was being performed late Wednesday.

Police shootings are a rare occurrence in Nebraska and under state law a grand jury is convened to review the case, Liebig said.

"I think it's unfortunate the person put us in that position," said the trooper. "Our job is to save lives, not take them.

"He certainly made a terrible decision," Liebig added. "Anytime you make a decision to take on four officers, there's got to be something wrong with the person. All in all, it was a bad deal. At least no one was injured."

Mundelein Police Cmdr. Eric Guenther said Wednesday police alerted the U.S. Marshal Great Lakes Regional Task Force based in Chicago once they believed Rivas was fleeing out of state.

Guenther said authorities are pretty sure Rivas left the area right after he shot Abiel Alvarado, 52, and Martina Santos, 31, at their home in the 800 block of Lange Street.

Rivas was upset because the cousins told him he had to move out because they were going to sell the home. Santos, who has a 5-year-old son, was in fair condition Wednesday at Condell Medical Center, Libertyville, a hospital spokesman said.

Rivas had also recently lost his job as a mechanic at an Arlington Heights store when it was turned into a franchise and all the employees were laid off. Police thought they may have captured him in unincorporated Lake County just outside of Mundelein on Tuesday morning when they found two of his pickup trucks.

Guenther said police did not set up roadblocks right after the shooting because when they arrived on the scene both victims needed medical attention before they could talk to them so they did not have a vehicle description or a direction of travel.

Based on where he ended up, "he couldn't have been around too much after the shooting," he said.


06/08/06

I had my police scanner on and was listening to the chase. Unfortunately I had to leave to go to the post office and run some errands so I missed most of the chase. On my way to the post office there were lots of police cars with their lights on heading to the interstate. They had all of the towns around here on alert and ready to set up spikes on the off ramps. He was killed near Overton, NE which is the next town west of Elm Creek. Traffic was diverted on I-80 from Lexington, NE to Overton, NE for several hours last night.

http://www.pioneerlocal.com

Quiet subdivision stunned by shooting
BY JOHN ROSZKOWSKI | STAFF WRITER
roszkowski@pioneerlocal.com

Janet Ito thought something was wrong when she was woken up by her dog barking at about 11:30 p.m. Monday at her home on Lange Street in Mundelein.

"It worried me because it never barks at night, so I was concerned somebody might be trying to get into the house," she said.

Ito looked outside and did not see anyone, but noticed the anti-theft light on her car was flashing. About 15 or 20 minutes later, she saw several squad cars and an ambulance pull up to a house a half a block away at 854 Lange Street, where she learned the next day two people had been shot.

"The only thing I can think of is the dog must have heard the gunfire," she said. "There was no activity when the dog started barking. The police weren't here yet."

Ito and other residents of the normally quiet subdivision just west of Carmel High School were shocked to learn about the shooting of 51-year-old Abiel G. Alvarado and 32-year-old Martina Santos. Police said Hermelindo Rivas, later killed Tuesday afternoon in a shootout with Nebraska State Police on Interstate 80, shot them.

"It didn't make me feel very safe considering I have a small child, but I guess it could happen anywhere," said Ito of the shootings in her neighborhood.

Early Tuesday morning, police staked out a house at Barnhill and Route 176 (Park Avenue), where they believed Rivas may have been hiding out after the shootings. A section of Route 176 from Route 83 to Midlothian Road was closed between 5:30 to 7:30 a.m. while police searched the house and the surrounding area.

Mundelein Police Commander Eric Guenther said two vehicles registered to Rivas were found parked outside the residence. The Northern Illinois Police Alarm System was activated and about 50 police officers from various departments created a perimeter around the home between 5 and 5:30 a.m. Tuesday.

Ryan Kegg, who lives on Park Avenue in a residence next to the house where police believed the suspect was hiding, said he had a small group of friends over when he got off work earlier that morning. One of the friends who spent the night at the house woke him at about 5 a.m. Tuesday and told him that there were police officers in his yard dressed in black gear and holding "what looked like AK-47s."

Kegg said within about a half hour police had surrounded the area. He said he then received a telephone call from police who told him that he should evacuate the house through the rear door.

"Then one of the SWAT guys starting yelling 'get out of the house now.' he said. "It was pretty scary. It was a pretty intense moment."

Kegg said the others inside evacuated the house and were directed by officers to take cover behind a red truck in a neighbor's driveway. About 20 minutes later, he said the officers told him the situation was clear and they could return home.

Mundelein Police Chief Raymond Rose said police fired a non-lethal flash grenade into the house where they believed Rivas was hiding, but did not find him at that location. The grenade creates a loud noise but causes no damage.

Charles Griffin, a resident who lives on West Barnhill Drive about a block away from the house that police searched, said officers came to his house at about 5:30 a.m. that morning and told him there was a situation in the neighborhood and not to leave the house.

"I sent my wife and two daughters to the basement," he said. "They were scared to death. I knew with the police helicopter and the police (wearing) riot gear that there was a situation."

Griffin credits police for looking out for the people in this neighborhood, saying the officers did a "thorough job" in responding to what they believed could have been a dangerous situation.

"They were just looking after the safety of the people in this area," he said.

If it couldn't get stranger and worse.

http://www.dailyherald.com/story.asp?id=197649

Mundelein suspect on the run since 2003
Man accused of killing ex-girlfriend in Atlanta

By Bob Susnjara
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Friday, June 09, 2006

Mundelein police say a man accused in a double-shooting in the village this week was wanted for murder in suburban Atlanta since 2003 and remained on the lam after assuming a new identity. Police initially identified the shooter in Monday night’s incident on Mundelein’s eastern edge as Hermelindo Rivas based on a Mexican driver’s license and Social Security card he possessed. The suspect was on the run when he was killed Tuesday in an exchange of gunfire with Nebraska state troopers.

Nebraska authorities did a fingerprint check on the man and learned he really was Nicholas Manfredo Lopez-Pena, said Mundelein Police Chief Raymond J. Rose. Lopez-Pena, 45, was an illegal immigrant from El Salvador.

Rose said the fingerprint check revealed Lopez-Pena was wanted on a murder warrant by the Gwinnett County Police Department near Atlanta.

Lopez-Pena was accused of killing his ex-girlfriend by shooting her in the chest, neck and thigh Jan. 6, 2003, Mundelein police investigator Paul Dempsey said. He said Lopez-Pena tracked the woman to suburban Atlanta.

“When he shot her, she was holding a baby and there was an 8-year-old child next to her,” Dempsey said Thursday.

In addition to murder, Lopez-Pena was wanted on arrest warrants for drunken driving, battery, criminal damage to property, attempted murder, cruelty to children in the second degree and other crimes, mostly in Georgia but also in West Virginia.

Rose said Lopez-Pena tried unsuccessfully to become a U.S. citizen in 1993, then made a failed request for political asylum after the ex-girlfriend’s slaying in 2003.

Lopez-Pena was fingerprinted when he sought political asylum and may not have known he was wanted for murder in Georgia at the time, Rose said. Those fingerprints were entered into the federal Bureau of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement system and led to the discovery of Lopez-Pena’s true identity by Nebraska police following an autopsy.

“It’s starting to become kind of bizarre with all of the twists with this,” Rose said.

Lopez-Pena made black-market purchases of the Mexican driver’s license and Social Security card, both with Hermelindo Rivas’ name, after the 2003 slaying.

Rose said a Hermelindo Rivas exists in Mexico, but is 38. Lopez-Pena’s birth date was April 10, 1961.

Lopez-Pena became upset Monday after he was told he was being evicted from the room he was renting at a house on the 800 block of Lange Street in Mundelein, police said.

Lopez-Pena removed some belongings, but returned to the house and shot his former landlords, 51-year-old Abiel Alvardo and Martina Santos, 32. Alvarado and his sister-in-law, Santos, are recovering, police said.

It’s not known when Lopez-Pena moved to Mundelein, authorities said.

http://www.lexch.com/site/news.cfm?news ... 8509&rfi=6


06/10/2006
New identity, new warrants emerge after fatal manhunt
By: Lindsey Tederman


Bit by bit, the investigation of an alleged double-shooting suspect chased and killed by the Nebraska State Patrol six miles east of Lexington Tuesday afternoon is coming together according to the Dawson County Attorney's office.

Immigration officials have now identified who Nebraska law enforcement knew as a dangerous Hermelindo Rivas, 38, as an even more dangerous Camilo DeJesus Pena-Lopez, 38, from El Salvador. The autopsy of Pena-Lopez' body began Wednesday afternoon.

Using three aliases and wanted on two warrants in Illinois and Georgia, Pena-Lopez was considered armed and dangerous when he entered Nebraska Tuesday afternoon. He was wanted in Mundelein, Ill., on an arrest warrant for two counts of attempted first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated assault with a weapon. He was also wanted on an active warrant out of Gwinnett County, Georgia for homicide willful killing with a gun using the alias Nicolas Lopez-Pena, 45.

The Tuesday pursuit, shooting and subsequent investigation in Nebraska closed down the interstate from 3 to 10 p.m. between Overton and Lexington. Traffic was re-routed through the two cities. The investigating agency is by SCALES, South Central Area Law Enforcement Services. Pena-Lopez was spotted near the Odessa interchange after U.S. Marshals notified the Nebraska State Patrol that he might be traveling in the state driving a 1994 Suzuki Sidekick. At this point, he was being sought only for an alleged double shooting in Mundelein, a suburb of Chicago, according to the Mundelein Police Department.

At a press conference Wednesday morning in Lexington, Nebraska State Patrol Capt. Jim Parish said the vehicle was spotted at Odessa and the state patrol, with the assistance of the Dawson County Sheriff's Department, pursued Pena-Lopez at speeds of up to 65 mph.

The state patrol placed spike strips on the road to deflate Pena-Lopez' tires and he was soon pulled over at mile marker 243. The officers then ordered him out of the vehicle. He got out brandishing a handgun, shot once and officers returned fire according to Capt. Parish. Pena-Lopez was killed on westbound I-80 by the Nebraska State Patrol. No officers were injured in the gunshot exchange. According to Dawson County Sheriff Gary Reiber, the sheriff's department helped secure the scene and maintain it until the SCALES investigation began. Sheriff Reiber said two Dawson County deputies were involved directly with the pursuit and seven others were assigned to traffic control. He could not speak on any details because of this involvement.

Waterman added, by Nebraska statute, a grand jury would need to convene. She said state law mandates that a grand jury be called within 30 days when someone dies while being apprehended by law enforcement officers or while in their custody. A special prosecutor would be appointed to manage the evidence retrieved by SCALES, and then present the evidence to the grand jury. In turn, the jury will determine if the officers acted properly.

Bob Anderson, Buffalo County Sheriff said, "The answers to a lot of these questions may never be answered." What is known, according to Cmdr. Eric Guenther from the Mundelein Police Department, a shooting was reported at approximately 11:30 p.m. Monday night at a home in Mundelein.

Pena-Lopez' landlords, a 52-year-old male and a 31-year-old female had been shot and were transported to Condell Hospital late Monday night. The man, who was shot in the shoulder, was released and the female is currently in stable condition after surgery from her gunshot wounds in the abdomen and leg.

Soon after the shootings, the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System contacted the Emergency System Team to investigate three homes where Pena-Lopez was thought to be located. All residents cooperated by evacuating their homes and the suspect was not found.

Cmdr. Guenther said the officers learned that Pena-Lopez may be heading west to California. The U.S. Marshals were then contacted and the manhunt began. Pena-Lopez' vehicle was then located near Odessa on Tuesday afternoon at approximately 3 p.m. The chase and eventual shooting then occurred.

More information regarding the Georgia arrest warrant is currently unavailable.

Anderson praised all agencies involved in the incident. "Cooperation among the investigating agencies was excellent," Anderson said. "I commend all officers involved. All individuals acted professionally under an extremely difficult situation."

The Nebraska State Patrol brought in two crime scene trailers and set up a command post. Other law enforcement agencies who helped with the incident and pending investigation are the Kearney Police Department, Grand Island Police Department, Hastings Police Department, Hall County Sheriff's Department and the Lexington Fire Department was also called in for assistance.

The Nebraska State Patrol Officers involved in the incident will have a few days off and will then continue work with light duty Capt. Parish said.
"It's a traumatic experience even when the outcome is good," Capt. Parish.

http://cbs2chicago.com/topstories/local ... 70533.html

Jul 8, 2006 4:02 pm US/Central

Grand Jury Clears Troopers In Death Of Fugitive
Suspect Was Wanted For Shooting Mundelein Landlords
(AP) LEXINGTON, Neb. A Nebraska grand jury has found no criminal conduct in the death of Camilo DeJesus Pena-Lopez, a fugitive wanted in a Chicago suburb who was shot to death by state troopers in Nebraska.

Pena-Lopez, who was known as Hermelindo Rivas to some in Mundelein, was killed June 6 after he shot at troopers who forced his car to stop west of Overton, Nebraska.

Nebraska law requires a grand jury be called within 30 days after a person dies while in custody or being apprehended. The grand jury reported its finding yesterday.

Pena-Lopez had been wanted in Mundelein for shooting his landlords and in Gwinnett County, Georgia, for slaying his common-law wife.

Illinois authorities identified his vehicle, and state troopers spotted it. When Pena-Lopez got out of his vehicle after a pursuit, he refused to surrender and fired a handgun at troopers. The troopers returned fire and killed him.