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Four suspects who have been charged in the shooting death of Chicago Police Officer Areanah Preston were ordered held without bail on murder and other charges in connection with a crime spree that also involved five other alleged robberies in a two-hour span.
Preston, 24, was shot and killed outside her South Side home on Saturday after returning from a night shift, according to police. She was the sixth and final victim of a string of robberies kicked off because one of the suspects allegedly "needed money for a barbecue," prosecutors said in court Wednesday.
Trevell Breeland, 19; Joseph Brooks, 19; Jakwon Buchanan, 18; and a 16-year-old juvenile whose name was not released all face charges that include murder and robbery in Preston's death.
Police also charged them in connection with five other armed robberies that same evening, a carjacking and in Breeland's case, felon in possession of a firearm. All four had lengthy rap sheets, and none had jobs or have finished high school, according to prosecutors.
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"These very young men unfortunately have extremely extensive criminal backgrounds," the judge said, moments before denying bail for all four suspects.
Prosecutors alleged in court that Buchanan's girlfriend wanted money for a barbecue, and that the suspects dressed in all black, put on masks and used her car for the first robbery before deciding they should steal a Kia.
They robbed four women and a man before approaching Preston's home in the stolen car, according to prosecutors. They then swarmed her as she was on her front lawn.
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The judge, who opened the court session with a graphic content warning, said that "a mountain of evidence" prevented in court Wednesday led to his no-bail decision. Police tracked the suspects' phones, linking them to each of the crime scenes. They recovered a gun that matched ballistics testing from casings recovered outside Preston's home. Their own friends and family identified them in surveillance video, and a pal of the juvenile suspect's called him on speakerphone and solicited a confession while sitting with detectives.
Brooks, the suspected triggerman, allegedly told police that he shot first when he saw Preston reach for her service weapon.
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She returned fire, sending back two rounds before she was struck in the face and neck, prosecutors revealed in court. The Chicago Fire Department responded to a car fire in a vacant lot about 15 minutes after the murder. It was the stolen Kia.
Police were conducting surveillance of a house on Bishop Street when Buchanan left to get in an Uber ride. They pulled the car over and allegedly recovered the murder weapon. As officers were placing him under arrest, he allegedly started to scream, alerting the other suspects inside the house that police were on to them.
After an hours-long standoff with police, they were arrested too, prosecutors said.
Preston was a three-year veteran of the force and was due to receive a master's degree from Loyola University in Chicago this coming Saturday.
Her family will accept her degree at the commencement ceremony, which is closed to the media, a school spokesman told Fox News Digital on Wednesday.
Police took five persons of interest into custody earlier this week — four after a SWAT standoff at 76th and Bishop streets on Sunday night, and a fifth separately, according to law enforcement sources — but it was not immediately clear whether they were all connected to the attack on Preston.
Both Breeland and Buchanan lived on Bishop Street, police said.
A spokesperson for State's Attorney Kim Foxx deferred questions about the investigation to Chicago police.
Early on in the investigation, the attack was believed to have been a robbery, according to the city's chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police. Prosecutors confirmed that Wednesday and said Preston's gun had also been stolen and later sold.
A law enforcement source told Fox News Digital it fit the pattern of a "swarm" style robbery, in which a group of crooks rush a single victim. The number and nature of Preston's gunshot wounds also suggested an up-close encounter, the source said.
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Preston, after working a night shift, returned home around 1:45 a.m. Saturday, according to police. Around that time, dispatchers received an alert of shots fired on her block.
"Officers responded and found one of our own suffering gunshot wounds," the department's interim superintendent, Eric Carter, said during an emotional news briefing Saturday morning.
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called the shooting "awful and tragic" and said she had instructed police to "spare no expense" in hunting down the suspects.
"There are some who say that our police officers are not worthy of our respect," she said. "There are some who say we should not be supporting and funding our police department. I would urge any person who holds that view to reflect on moments like this."
