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Dracy Pendleton: Fugitive Hunted For Attempted Murder of Cop Killed in Shootout, Injured FBI SWAT

By Janice Malcolm
Published on: 15:58 PST, May 15, 2016

During the hunt for a fugitive who was wanted in the shooting and attempted murder of a police officer in Illinois last week, an FBI agent was shot by the same fugitive before his dead body was later discovered. It appears that during the shootout the fugitive took a bullet and died from his injuries.

The fugitive was 35-year-old Dracy Pendleton and the authorities tracked the man to an abandoned house near the Kentucky border in southern Illinois on Sunday. The FBI agent was shot during the shootout with the fugitive and was airlifted out of the Shawnee National Forest and is being treated at a St. Louis hospital and is expected to survive. The fugitive, however, had no such luck as authorities discovered his body after sending a remote controlled robot to survey the area following the shootout.

Pendleton became a wanted man after having an altercation with a police officer on May 7 when a traffic stop escalated. That Saturday, at approximately 10:45 p.m. the man was stopped in front of his home in Mahomet in Champaign County, Illinois, and a physical struggle ensued during the stop, resulting with the Mahomet officer attempting to taser the man. What happened instead was that Dracy Pendleton pulled out a handgun, shooting the officer in the right arm. He then ran into his home, grabbed an assault rifle, and then fled the scene in his truck. He drove to a nearby quarry, but stole one of the trucks on site before the police had a chance to set a proper perimeter.

According to WQAD, he was believed to also be armed with an AK-47 and very much dangerous.

It is believed that the fugitive had been shot in the neck during the altercation over the traffic stop and possibly sought medical attention. The police discovered the stolen truck, abandoned, almost a week after his escape, and though the Illinois State Police refused to state exactly where they had found the abandoned truck, they did intensify their search for Pendleton in the Lusk Creek Wilderness Area in Pope County. The area has been closed to the public since Monday, May 9.

A statement released by the police revealed that on May 8, the authorities received a tip from a resident, and shortly after midnight on Sunday the state police were able to catch sight of him in Shawnee National Forest. The statement also said that the fugitive was spotted by the Illinois State Police (ISP) SWAT running near a cemetery with what appeared to be a rifle and a bandolier, which is a shoulder belt containing loops for bullet cartridges.

The FBI and other investigative authorities did lose sight of him after the initial cemetery spotting, but after establishing a perimeter, they later tracked him to an abandoned home. Reports say that around 5 a.m., after ISP and FBI SWAT had cleared the area, they went in to corner the fugitive. As they approached the structure “an exchange of gunfire,” occurred that left the FBI agent wounded.

The Telegraph reported that once the shootout had ended, the FBI sent in the remote controlled robot, which discovered the body of Pendleton, lying on the floor of the second story with the assault rifle. Once FBI and ISP SWAT entered the house, they confirmed his identity and Emergency Services were called in to the scene where they pronounced Pendleton deceased. The police are processing multiple scenes and are expected to restricted access to the area surrounding where the fugitive was killed until Monday evening.

An investigation is still ongoing.

[Photo Courtesy of Mahomet Police Department]

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