How Maday overpowered guards to escape

Convicted bank robber Robert Maday overpowered two armed officers by suddenly lurching forward from the back seat of the car, grabbing the driver's gun from a hip holster, and then threatening to kill both officers.

With hands and feet shackled, alone in the back seat, the 39-year-old Maday suddenly moved his body forward head first, aiming his hands straight at the driving officer's gun, according to Sally Daly, spokeswoman for Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, whose office employs the two officers, ages 69 and 57.

That moment sparked a 26-plus hour manhunt across the West and Northwest suburbs for Maday, two carjackings and another bank robbery before ending with the Elk Grove Village man's capture Friday in West Chicago.

Maday was being taken from where he was being held in federal custody in Kankakee to Rolling Meadows for a court sentencing hearing Thursday morning. The car had bucket seats in the front and no barrier between the back and front seats, Daly said Saturday.

After Maday lurched for the gun as they were driving near Algonquin Road in Rolling Meadows, the officer in the passenger seat threw his body onto Maday to stop him and pushed Maday's chest to get him back into the back seat, leaving the officer halfway into the back seat, said Daly, her account based on the office's interviews of both officers.

"As Maday was pushed back, he withdrew the gun from the holster. At that point, with Maday in back - and the investigator kind of on top of him facing him and the gun pointed at the investigator's head, he said, 'Get back, get back or I'll kill both of you.'"

Maday then ordered the officer in the passenger seat to give him his gun or die, Daly said. And the officer did so.

Maday ordered the driver to pull into a Meijer store parking lot. Once there, he ordered the officers to unlock his handcuffs and foot shackles, Daly said.

He then ordered the officers into the back seat and to put handcuffs on themselves, she said. Maday took money from the two and ordered the officer who had been in the passenger seat to take off his pants and put his orange prison pants on.

Now dressed in the officer's pants, Maday locked the car and left, Daly said.

One of the officers had an extra handcuff key in his wallet and was able to get it out and unlock the cuffs, after which the two got out and ran for help, she said.

The two officers, both state's attorney investigators, were suspended pending the outcome of an internal investigation. The fact that the officers were both in the front seat of the car was a violation of department rules on transporting prisoners, Daly said. Alvarez said it was a "serious breach of security" and promised a full investigation.

The officers will be paid, pending the investigation's outcome, based on rules of their union, the Fraternal Order of Police. Depending on the outcome of the investigation, which could take several weeks, they could face firing. The office is not releasing the officers' names at this point.

Daly said the officer in the passenger seat had escorted Maday to court from Kankakee at least twice before. Asked if the two were on too friendly of terms, Daly said that at this point it's too early in the investigation to say.

Daly said the two investigators were law enforcement officers before being hired by the state's attorney's office.

The one who was in the passenger seat was hired in 1987 and had actually been a supervisor in the office before Alvarez was elected in 2008. He was demoted from his supervisory job after Alvarez's new head of investigations determined that the officer "was not meeting the requirements as a supervisor," Daly said.

The officer who was driving is a former Chicago police officer hired in 1994, she said.

The state's attorney's office does not have a requirement that prisoners be moved in cars with cages that would prevent a prisoner from access to the front seat, she said. But, Daly said that the state's attorney's office had applied for a federal grant to get two more cars with cages, ironically just before Maday's escape. The office has one such car now. Prisoner transport is a relatively small part of investigators' jobs, Daly said.

The way the officers handled the situation was a "serious breach of security and something obviously that we're extremely concerned with," Daly said. Officers need to always be ready and able to respond to the unexpected, she said.

As for whether the office will change it's procedures, Daly said that will be determined after the internal investigation is complete.

She said the state's attorney's office is "deeply grateful" to the U.S. Marshal's Office, the FBI, the sheriff's office and all of the local police departments that helped track Maday down, particularly Rolling Meadows and West Chicago. "The police response was tremendous and much appreciated," Daly said.