A South Side man has been charged with robbing a tobacco shop in Lombard that led to a shootout with police that left another suspect dead and an officer wounded.
Anthony Brown, 31, faces charges of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm at an officer, armed robbery with a firearm and aggravated battery, according to the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office, and was ordered held Saturday without bail.
Authorities said Brown and Pierre Thompson entered Pipes and Tobacco, 54 W. Roosevelt Rd., just after 4 p.m. Thursday, wearing masks and brandishing a handgun, and ordered an employee to open the cash register. They hit the owner of the store in the head with the gun and took his and the employee’s wallets and cellphones and $600 from a filing cabinet in the back of the store, prosecutors said.
According to prosecutors,officers responding to the robbery said they saw Brown and Thompson running from the store and that Thompson approached two officers in a vehicle and opened fire with a gun that had been modified with a “switch,” an illegal device that can turn a gun into an automatic weapon, striking one officer in a leg.
Prosecutors said the police officers returned fire, striking Thompson, who died at a hospital.
The officer was treated for injuries that weren’t life-threatening, officials said.
