Six share Aurora Cop of the Year honors
Six narcotics and special operations investigators were named Aurora Police Officers of the Year Thursday for their work bringing three people to justice in connection with an August 2009 slaying in the city.
Investigators Jeff Parrish, Mike Corrigan, Tom Maguire, Chris McWilliams, Clark Johnson and Adam Webb were packing up to go home when the homicide call came in around 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 26.
Upon arrival at the scene in the 1100 block of Brunswick Lane, investigators found 36-year-old Gregory L. Riley, of the 0-99 block of South Stolp Avenue, laying in the roadway suffering from multiple gunshot wounds.
"We all dropped what we were doing, hustled out there. and quickly devised a plan to check the area's known drug houses for activity," McWilliams said. "We pretty quickly were able to establish this was a drug deal gone bad so we set up surveillance and waited to see who showed up."
During that surveillance officers spotted a vehicle that stopped at the home they were watching and then quickly left. Johnson and Webb pulled the vehicle over in the area of Middlebury Lane and Baybooth Court after seeing several traffic violations.
"The award is pretty cool because as far as I'm concerned we were just Johnny on the spot, in the right place at the right time," Webb said.
McWilliams said officers could smell cannabis as they approached the car. They found about three pounds of cannabis under the hood and a small amount inside the passenger compartment.
"Just by the way they were talking to us, it was obvious something just wasn't right," he said.
While talking to the occupants, the officers discovered two of the three suspects allegedly set up a meeting with the murder victim under the guise of purchasing marijuana from him.
The three were originally charged with narcotics and armed robbery offenses pending results of evidence that was processed at the DuPage County Crime Lab. Once those results were obtained, the charges were upgraded to murder.
"It's unbelievable that our team won when you consider the 11 other months of great police work done by our peers," McWilliams said. "We're very humbled by it because we're fortunate to work with excellent officers and supervisors."
Officer Johnson began his career with the Aurora Police in 1995, Parrish and McWilliams in 2000, Corrigan and Webb in 2002, and Maguire in 2003.
Chief Greg Thomas credited the team with acting on an initial hunch.
"It is a perfect illustration of dedicated investigators knowing their assignment, knowing the players involved, and taking the action necessary to put those players behind bars for a very long time," Thomas said.
Others recognized included officer Edgar Gallardo, who, while off-duty, recognized, and took into custody, a wanted gang member he spotted at a Warrenville movie theater; officer Mike Nilles and Sgt. Tom Hinterlong for freeing an unconscious man who was hanging from some basement rafters and performing CPR until he began breathing on his own; and 911 operator Melissa Johnson for calming a frantic woman who had found her boyfriend unconscious, and then talking the woman through step-by-step CPR, which resulted in the man's life being saved.