Video: Fox Lake Man Watched Aftermath of Cop's Murder Unfold

A Fox Lake man stepped away from his job Tuesday morning to get a sandwich and ended up watching the aftermath of a police officer’s murder unfold.

“We just missed it,” said James Viciciondi, the operations manager at Precision Chrome.

“We were outside at the time it happened, actually,” but all the din of the industrial area must have drowned out the sound of the gunshot, Viciciondi said.

Viciciondi did see the squad car of slain Fox Lake police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz, and then watched the law enforcement response to the killing.

Gliniewicz, 52, had spotted two white men and a black man in the remote area, determined they were suspicious and went to confront them. The three men ran into a nearby swamp and Gliniewicz called for backup. When two more officers arrived they found his Gliniewicz’s body on the ground. He had been shot to death.

The hunt for Gliniewicz’s killers continued for a second day Wednesday. Local and state police, as well as U.S. Marshals and FBI and ATF agents, expanded their search of the small northern Illinois town, and Lake County Major Crimes Task Force Cmdr. George Filenko said there was no intention of throwing in the towel any time soon.

Filenko also said the task force was gathering video from surveillance cameras operated by both businesses and homeowners. A sign at Precision Chrome warns that the business is monitored by surveillance video but Viciciondi said the system is down.

“That camera system’s actually not working,” he said. “If it was working, it would have been a good thing.”

Viciciondi said squatters once lurked in the wooded, swampy area by Precision Chrome but seemed to have moved on years ago. He’s at a loss for what the men were doing there when Gliniewicz saw them, particularly considering the early hour.

“It was just a weird time, too,” he said. “Even if you were doing something you weren’t supposed to be doing, you wouldn’t think at almost 8 o’clock you’d be doing it.”

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