Alphanso Talley’s deadly rampage started when he and another person rode electric scooters to an Albany Park dollar store this weekend and snatched $110 during a violent robbery, prosecutors said during a Thursday detention hearing.
The crime spree continued after Talley was arrested and taken to Swedish Hospital, where he fatally shot Chicago police officer John Bartholomew and gravely wounded another cop before terrorizing the hospital staff during a chaotic escape, prosecutors said. After shooting out a glass door, Talley ran naked through the neighborhood and was ultimately found hiding under a porch.
Prosecutors still haven’t explained how Talley got the gun into the hospital after being arrested and searched after the robbery. But they said he was captured on video fidgeting and adjusting himself in the back of a police car.
Talley, 26, smiled at family members as a group of Cook County sheriff’s deputies escorted him into Judge D’Anthony Thedford’s packed courtroom. At one point, as prosecutors laid out the convicted felon’s lengthy criminal history, Thedford admonished Talley for giggling.
Thedford called Talley “dangerous,” noting that he had been free on electronic monitoring for other violent crimes when he allegedly robbed the store and shot the two officers. Thedford ordered Talley held at the Cook County Jail and set his next court date for May 20.
“No conditions that I can impose can keep the community safe from you,” the judge said, with police supporters looking on.
As Talley was being taken from the courtroom, he yelled to his family: “I love you.”
Terror at the hospital
Talley and his accomplice showed up at a Family Dollar store, 3239 W. Lawrence Ave., around 8 a.m. Saturday, prosecutors said. The two suspects were masked, and Talley allegedly pulled a gun from his waistband when a store clerk told them to leave a bag at the front of the store.
Talley took the 55-year-old woman to the back of the store at gunpoint and struck her in the face with the gun before demanding that she open a cash register and a safe, prosecutors said. The clerk said she didn’t have the keys, so Talley pistol-whipped her again, causing her to bleed. An arrest report noted that she suffered a broken nose and other injuries.
After Talley “dragged” the clerk back to the cash register, she was able to open it, prosecutors said. Talley made off with just $110, the clerk’s keys and her wallet.
As Talley and his accomplice fled on Lime scooters, the clerk hit an emergency alert button, prosecutors said. Talley was captured on video tossing the clerk’s wallet into a garbage can, and he was taken into custody a short time later with a bloody bundle of cash in his pocket.
He gave officers a bogus name and a fake ID, prosecutors said. Once he was handcuffed and placed in the back of a police car, video showed him fidgeting and manipulating something near his back. Eventually, he complained that he’d swallowed five bags of drugs and he was taken to Swedish Hospital.
Talley asked if he could keep his pants on, but he was instead given privacy to undress and was given a gown and a blanket, prosecutors said. Surveillance footage again showed him fidgeting, this time under the blanket.
When Bartholomew took handcuffs off Talley’s hands and legs, Talley reached under the blanket, pulled out a handgun and shot Bartholomew in the head, prosecutors said. He then turned and shot the second officer in the face, before bending down over the officer.
As fire alarms went off, locking some of the hospital doors, Talley aimed a gun at an employee and stole an ID badge, prosecutors said. Talley tried to use the badge to open a glass door, but couldn’t. So he shot out the door.
Talley, who was naked and carrying his gown, then chased another person while demanding their car keys and tried to approach a postal worker, who drove off, prosecutors said. He was found over an hour later in the 2600 block of West Carmen Avenue, hiding under a porch.
Talley’s public defender, Julie Koehler, argued there were “many reasons” her client had previously been granted pretrial release late last year, and there were “many reasons” for Thedford to consider releasing him Thursday.
Koehler said her client was “raised in the system” as a ward of the state until he was 18. She said he has been diagnosed with anxiety and depression and had been hospitalized throughout his childhood for suicide attempts.
Talley had pursued a high school equivalency certificate and had worked for a construction firm, Koehler said, insisting that he is “not a person that we should throw away.”
But Thedford ordered Talley detained, noting that he had been arrested for violent crimes while on pretrial release.
“If you’re out you’re dangerous,” Thedford said of Talley. “You’ve been given every opportunity that the law affords so that you could fight your cases out of custody. Every time you have violated.”
A controversial decision
Talley has a long adult criminal history dating back almost a decade. He has been convicted of seven felonies, including four for robberies, Cook County court records show.
At the time of the shooting, Talley was on electronic monitoring in two cases for armed carjacking and armed robbery. When he was charged with those crimes, we was on pretrial release for battering a correctional officer and possessing a stolen vehicle, and he was initially held in custody.
Then, Judge John Lyke Jr. decided to release him on electronic monitoring in December. Prosecutors objected, but Lyke said he’d seen a positive change in Talley since he first appeared before him in 2023.
“This court has had an opportunity to watch him,” Lyke said in December. “I have seen attitude adjustments. He came in this court in 2023 extremely angry.”
Shortly after his release, Talley was paroled in the two earlier cases, in which he was convicted of attacking the officer and possessing the stolen car. Talley continued showing up to court hearings for his two remaining cases, and he was granted more leniency to go to school and the dentist.
But earlier this year, he missed curfew and his monitoring device shut off a few days later. By March 11, warrants were issued for his arrest when he missed court. However, he remained free until Saturday when he was picked up for robbing the dollar store.
‘This law is not working’
Lyke’s decision to place Talley on electronic monitoring has set off a flurry of calls to reform both the county’s electronic monitoring program and a historic criminal justice law that established a system of cashless bail.
After Talley briefly appeared before Lyke on Tuesday, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke told reporters the electronic monitoring system was “broken,” insisting that it “is not keeping people safe.”
“We make sure that we put every bit of information in front of a judge to establish why we believe this person presents a danger, as we did in this case,” O’Neill Burke said. “We established that he had four pending violent felonies, and in spite of that, he was placed on electronic monitoring.”
On Wednesday, Illinois Republican leaders filed legislation in response to the shooting “to keep violent criminals from continuing to commit violent offenses while on pre-trial release and ankle monitoring,” according to a statement.
The Republicans said the legislation “makes a commonsense amendment” Pretrial Fairness Act, the law that eliminated cash bail in Illinois and is a component of the broader SAFE-T Act. The proposal “requires that anyone arrested for a felony while on pretrial release and ankle monitoring … be detained until the charges are resolved,” according to the statement.
“Let’s be clear: this law is not working the way it was promised,” said House Republican Leader Tony McCombie, of Savanna. “No law should prioritize process over protection. If loopholes exist, they must be closed. If policies fall short, they must be fixed. Preventable harm is unacceptable and that is why we are bringing this serious legislative solution forward.”
Gov. JB Pritzker told reporters Wednesday that he continues to support the sweeping reforms that are now under renewed scrutiny. He blamed Lyke for granting electronic monitoring to Talley.
“It’s a tragedy what’s happened, awful,” Pritzker said. “And as you’ve seen in most of the cases where Republicans have complained about the SAFE-T act, it’s actually been a bad decision by an elected judge in Illinois or no hearing at all, because the prosecutor didn’t bring it to the judge.
“And that has been a reason why somebody gets let out. A judge can make this decision. A judge should have made the decision to keep that person in jail.”
