(The following article by Frank Main was posted on the Chicago Sun-Times website on October 9.)
CHICAGO — A man who allegedly boasted to pals that he killed Metra police officer Thomas Cook was taken into custody for questioning Friday — and police have recovered a gun that may have been used in the crime, sources said.
Cook, 43, was shot in the head in his squad car at the Metra stop in Harvey the night of Sept. 27.
The man being questioned was picked up about 5 a.m. Friday in south suburban University Park in connection with an unrelated crime, sources said. He is a convicted criminal from Harvey with ties to a street gang, sources said. No charges have been filed in the killing.
Members of the South Suburban Major Crimes Task Force have recovered a revolver they suspect was used in the shooting, sources said. No bullet casings were found at the shooting scene, indicating the murder weapon was a revolver and not a semiautomatic pistol, the sources said.
Cook’s SIG-Sauer service weapon was missing from his squad car after the killing, and investigators are continuing to hunt for that weapon, sources said.
Cook, the married father of a young son and daughter, lived in Dyer, Ind. He was the first Metra officer to die in the line of duty. His 90 fellow Metra officers attended his funeral Tuesday.
He was a former member of the Riverdale Police Department, where his father served as chief for years. Riverdale police Sgt. Dan Dempsey, a close friend of Cook, praised the task force for investigating “nonstop, around the clock.”
“He was one of our own,” Dempsey said. “This was uncalled for and senseless. He did not know what hit him.”