A man wanted on murder and armed robbery charges was taken into custody Wednesday after a 15-hour standoff with police at a Chicago restaurant just blocks from the Democratic National Convention, authorities said.
Joshua Zimmerman had been sought by the U.S. Marshals Service since his escape from a Mississippi courthouse in June. He was located Tuesday at the restaurant, according to Justin Smith, chief deputy with the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office in Mississippi.
Click to Gallery
A man wanted on murder and armed robbery charges was taken into custody Wednesday after a 15-hour standoff with police at a Chicago restaurant just blocks from the Democratic National Convention, authorities said.
Joshua Zimmerman, who escaped from a Mississippi courthouse and is wanted on murder and armed robbery charges, is taken into custody following a standoff with police at a restaurant in Chicago on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. (ABC 7 Chicago via AP)
Joshua Zimmerman, who escaped from a Mississippi courthouse and is wanted on murder and armed robbery charges, is taken into custody following a standoff with police at a restaurant in Chicago on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. (ABC 7 Chicago via AP)
This photo provided by The U.S. Marshals Service shows Joshua Zimmerman, who escaped from a Mississippi courthouse and is wanted on murder and armed robbery charges. (The U.S. Marshals Service via AP)
Chicago police SWAT officers patrol the area near the 2300 block of West Madison Street in Chicago, during a standoff with an escaped prisoner, Joshua Zimmerman, on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024 in Chicago. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via AP)
After marshals learned that Zimmerman was in Chicago, an agency task force concluded that he was at a seafood restaurant, where investigators believed he was working.
“During the arrest attempt, Zimmerman retreated into the ceiling and barricaded himself," the agency said in a statement. A Chicago police SWAT team was then called to the scene.
The restaurant is about a half-mile from the United Center, where the political convention is being held. The Marshals Service said there was “no connection or threat to the event or those attending.”
Without using Zimmerman’s name, the Chicago Police Department said a person was taken into custody about 7:20 a.m. and that the SWAT action that began about 4 p.m. Tuesday had ended.
The Marshals Service said Zimmerman escaped from the circuit court building in Hernando, Mississippi, where he was being held on attempted murder and armed robbery charges. He was also awaiting extradition to Houston, Texas, where he’s charged with murder, the Marshals Service said.
Zimmerman was wearing street clothes, not a jail jumpsuit, when he escaped. A screenshot from a courthouse security video showed him wearing khaki pants and a white shirt and no handcuffs.
Smith told reporters that the sheriff’s department and other agencies have been investigating why Zimmerman was not wearing handcuffs and how he escaped. He said authorities want to bring him back to Mississippi.
“That’s why we’re excited to actually get a chance to sit down with Zimmerman and get some more facts,” Smith said.
According to court records in Harris County, Texas, Zimmerman is accused of fatally shooting a woman, Keyanna Mercer, at a Houston motel on Sept. 2, 2023.
The two were asked to leave the motel after multiple complaints of fighting, and when staff members checked the room to see if they had left, they found Mercer’s body with a gunshot wound to the head, police said.
Court records also show Zimmerman was arrested in Connecticut in 2022 on a felony sexual assault charge. He pleaded not guilty and was freed on a $200,000 bond, but a warrant was later issued for his re-arrest. Connecticut State Police did not immediately provide details on the case.
Callahan reported from Indianapolis. Associated Press writers Juan Lozano in Houston and Emily Wagster Pettus in Jackson, Mississippi, contributed to t his report.
Joshua Zimmerman, who escaped from a Mississippi courthouse and is wanted on murder and armed robbery charges, is taken into custody following a standoff with police at a restaurant in Chicago on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. (ABC 7 Chicago via AP)
Joshua Zimmerman, who escaped from a Mississippi courthouse and is wanted on murder and armed robbery charges, is taken into custody following a standoff with police at a restaurant in Chicago on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. (ABC 7 Chicago via AP)
Joshua Zimmerman, who escaped from a Mississippi courthouse and is wanted on murder and armed robbery charges, is taken into custody following a standoff with police at a restaurant in Chicago on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024. (ABC 7 Chicago via AP)
This photo provided by The U.S. Marshals Service shows Joshua Zimmerman, who escaped from a Mississippi courthouse and is wanted on murder and armed robbery charges. (The U.S. Marshals Service via AP)
Chicago police SWAT officers patrol the area near the 2300 block of West Madison Street in Chicago, during a standoff with an escaped prisoner, Joshua Zimmerman, on Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024 in Chicago. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune via AP)
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A tech billionaire performed the first private spacewalk hundreds of miles above Earth on Thursday, a high-risk endeavor reserved for professional astronauts — until now.
Tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman teamed up with SpaceX to test the company’s brand new spacesuits on his chartered flight. The daring feat also saw SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis going out once Isaacman was safely back inside.
This spacewalk was simple and quick — less than two hours — compared with the drawn-out affairs conducted by NASA. Astronauts at the International Space Station often need to move across the sprawling complex for repairs, always traveling in pairs and lugging gear. Station spacewalks can last seven to eight hours.
Isaacman emerged first from the hatch, joining a small elite group of spacewalkers who until now had included only professional astronauts from a dozen countries.
“Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world," Isaacman said as the capsule soared above the South Pacific. Cameras on board caught his silhouette, waist high at the hatch, with the blue Earth beneath.
The commercial spacewalk was the main focus of the five-day flight financed by Isaacman and Elon Musk’s company, and the culmination of years of development geared toward settling Mars and other planets.
All four on board donned the new spacewalking suits to protect themselves from the harsh vacuum. They launched on Tuesday from Florida, rocketing farther from Earth than anyone since NASA’s moonwalkers. The orbit was reduced by half — to 460 miles (740 kilometers) — for the spacewalk.
This first spacewalking test involved more stretching than walking. Isaacman kept a hand or foot attached to it the whole time as he flexed his arms and legs to see how the spacesuit held up. The hatch sported a walker-like structure for extra support.
After roughly 10 minutes outside, Isaacman was replaced by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis to go through the same motions. Gillis bobbed up and down in weightlessness, no higher than her knees out of the capsule, as she twisted her arms and sent reports back to Mission Control.
Each had 12-foot (3.6-meter) tethers but did not unfurl them or dangle at the end unlike what happens at the space station, where astronauts routinely float out at a much lower orbit.
More and more wealthy passengers are plunking down huge sums for rides aboard private rockets to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Other have spent tens of millions to stay in space for days or even weeks. Space experts and risk analysts say it’s inevitable that some will seek the thrill of spacewalking, deemed one of the most dangerous parts of spaceflight after launch and reentry but also the most soul-stirring.
This operation was planned down to the minute with little room for error. Trying out new spacesuits from a spacecraft new to spacewalking added to the risk. So did the fact that the entire capsule was exposed to the vacuum of space.
There were a few glitches. Isaacman had to manually pull the hatch open instead of pushing a button on board. Before heading out, Gillis reported seeing bulges in the hatch seal.
Scott “Kidd” Poteet, a former Air Force Thunderbird pilot, and SpaceX engineer Anna Menon stayed strapped to their seats to monitor from inside. All four underwent intensive training before the trip.
It went by “in the blink of an eye,” said SpaceX commentator Kate Tice.
Congratulations streamed in after the spacewalk concluded at one hour and 46 minutes — or a full swing and then some around Earth.
“Today’s success represents a giant leap forward for the commercial space industry,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said via X.
Isaacman, 41, CEO and founder of the Shift4 credit card-processing company, has declined to disclose how much he invested in the flight. It was the first of three flights in a program he’s dubbed Polaris; this one was called Polaris Dawn. For SpaceX’s inaugural private flight in 2021, he took up contest winners and a cancer survivor.
Until Thursday, only 263 people had conducted a spacewalk, representing 12 countries. The Soviet Union’s Alexei Leonov kicked it off in 1965, followed a few months later by NASA’s Ed White.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
This image made from a SpaceX video shows SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis emerging from the capsule, Thursday Sept. 12, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)
This image made from a SpaceX video shows SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis on her way out of the capsule, Thursday Sept. 12, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)
This image made from a SpaceX video shows the start of the first private spacewalk led by tech billionaire Jared Isaacman Thursday Sept. 12, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)
This image made from a SpaceX video shows the crew of the first private spacewalk led by tech billionaire Jared Isaacman inside the capsule, Thursday Sept. 12, 2024. (SpaceX via AP)
This image provided by SpaceX on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, shows a view of Earth and the Dragon capsule's Skywalker spacewalk platform shortly after the Polaris Dawn crew launched into an orbit. (SpaceX via AP)