Chicago police gather near East 89th Pl. and Indiana after an officer and two ATF agents were shot on Wednesday, June 7, 2021. | Brian Rich/Sun-Times file
Sun-Times file
A Chicago man was sentenced to 27 years in federal prison Wednesday for opening fire on an unmarked car carrying a police officer and two federal agents in July 2021.
The judge handed down the sentence against Eugene McLaurin in a courtroom filled with law enforcement officials. They included Christopher Amon, Chicago’s special-agent-in-charge of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Kristen de Tineo, who held that job at the time of the shooting.
“It is astonishing … to learn that no one’s killed or more seriously injured,” U.S. District Judge Manish Shah told McLaurin. “That act, and being willing and able to do it, makes you murderous. You didn’t kill anyone that day, but you were willing to.”
The judge also heard all three victims explain how McLaurin’s attack continues to haunt them today.
“It seems that the city has lost its humanity,” one said, explaining that “there is no fear of any consequences for pulling the trigger.”
McLaurin opened fire with a Glock 9mm pistol at the two ATF special agents and a task force officer on July 7, 2021, spraying them with bullets in an attack that left one of the victims feeling like “a fish stuck in a small fishbowl with a predator attacking and nowhere to escape.”
One agent described looking down and seeing that her hand was “blown open, spilling blood,” while the other recalled hearing the first agent “scream in pain.”
McLaurin had “hunted them down … like prey,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Jodrey told the judge in a recent court memo.
“I didn’t know if any of us were going to make it home to our families that day,” the task force officer told the judge in a written statement.
It all happened ahead of a visit to the Chicago area by President Joe Biden, who wound up discussing the shooting with then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot on the tarmac at O’Hare Airport.
McLaurin’s attorney said he has spent “every single day” since “filled with regret.” McLaurin’s father served a lengthy prison sentence following a murder conviction, defense attorney Michael Baker wrote. Now, McLaurin’s twin 3-year-old daughters face a similar experience to their father’s. McLaurin has been held in custody since his arrest in July 2021, records show.
In a letter to the judge, McLaurin wrote that “anything I say today can never equate to the fear, the pain and suffering” that the agents and task force officer “continue to live with.”
“This event wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t caught up in living a criminal lifestyle,” McLaurin wrote in the handwritten letter. “They were simply doing [their] job and didn’t deserve to be put in a life threatening situation.”
The agents and officer targeted by McLaurin had been helping install surveillance equipment in West Pullman the morning of the shooting. McLaurin spotted them as they traveled in an unmarked white Chrysler but believed the car contained members of a rival street gang — or “opps.”
So McLaurin began to follow them in his white Chevrolet Malibu — and trailed them for nearly two miles, according to Jodrey.
The agents realized they were being followed but thought they’d be safe once they got on the expressway, Jodrey wrote. When they reached the on-ramp for Interstate 57 near 119th Street, though, McLaurin pulled parallel on Ashland Avenue, rolled down his window and opened fire.
Bullets ripped through the Chrysler’s gas cap, front passenger window and rear passenger door, striking the front passenger seat, records show. One agent was shot in the left hand, the other was shot on the right side of his body, and the task force officer suffered an injury to his head.
Still, the task force officer managed to continue driving the car onto the expressway in order to escape McLaurin.
“I felt a sharp pain on the right side of my head, felt blood pouring down my neck, and saw blood on my hand,” the task force officer later wrote to the judge. “Not knowing the extent of any of our injuries, I didn’t know if any of us were going to make it home to our families that day.”
One of the agents wrote, “the pain was unbearable. I was terrified. Looking up, I saw that my other partner’s head was now bleeding. I feared the worst. It was a nightmare.” The other wrote, “I did not want this to be the last moment in my life. I did not want to leave my loved ones behind without saying goodbye, but I was not sure we would survive.”
McLaurin later dropped the pistol into a sewer and hid the key to the Malibu in a basement dryer-vent tube. However, two spent shell casings were spotted on the Malibu’s windshield when it was later found parked in front of his house.
They matched the color and caliber of the shell casings at the scene of the shooting, Jodrey wrote.