Daniel Brown / Photo from Chicago Police
BY SUN-TIMES STAFF
For two years, residents in an Indianapolis neighborhood lived in fear of the man with a Jekyll and Hyde personality who allegedly had threatened to shoot anyone who stepped into his yard.
The picture emerging of Daniel Brown — wanted by Indiana authorities for a weekend shooting spree and also suspected of shooting a Chicago Police captain Tuesday night — is that of an unstable middle-age man who could be charming one minute, enraged the next.
“It’s like he was two different people,” said one neighbor on the street where Brown lived with his girlfriend. “You were very careful in your conversations because you didn’t want him to go off.”
According to Indiana police reports, he was never convicted of a crime. But he had a history of run-ins with police, often involving the women in his life, the reports show.
In 2008, a woman alleged to police that Brown assaulted her and harassed her at work, according to police reports. In 2002, a woman alleged that he had punched her, the reports say.
The Saturday shooting of three people in Indianapolis led to a manhunt that ended with a standoff with police Tuesday night in Chicago.
The U.S. Marshal’s Service’s Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force and Chicago Police had zeroed in on Brown’s location, tracking him to his sister’s Englewood home.
In an ensuing gun battle, Chicago Police Capt. Ed Kulbida was shot about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday when Brown allegedly fired shots from the first floor of an apartment building near West 72nd Street and South Lowe Avenue, police said. Kulbida suffered wounds to his head and shoulder and was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, where he was recovering Wednesday.
After the shooting, hundreds of officers flooded the area, blocking 71st Street for blocks. A six-hour standoff followed the gunbattle, ending when authorities stormed the building, arrested Brown and found another man shot to death.
The dead man was identified by a law enforcement source as Daniel Jackson, 42, who is thought to be Brown’s sister’s boyfriend.
Daniel Jackson / Photo from Cook County Sheriff’s office
On Thursday, Brown was charged with one count of first-degree murder, two
counts attempted murder, one count of aggravated battery with a firearm, police said. He was also wanted on a fugitive from justice warrant.
Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Tuesday night that both Brown and Jackson were considered “offenders” in the standoff. McCarthy said hostage negotiators tried to talk to both men but never got a response.
The captain is the most high-ranking police officer to be shot in quite some time, said Pat Camden, spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police.
Kulbida, 58, is a 29-year veteran of the department. He has received 146 departmental awards, including seven Department Commendations, according to police.
On Wednesday, he was in good enough spirits to joke around during a visit from Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
“I told him that if this police work doesn’t work out, you should think about the open mike Thursday night at Second City. Incredible sense of humor, given where he was and what had happened,” Emanuel said.
Kulbida also reminded the mayor that he once served with Emanuel’s uncle, based out of the former Area 4 police headquarters.
“He reminded me that he worked with my Uncle Les in the 4th Area. And when I went out and talked to the officers — a lot of the officers [who] were there outside were off-duty, but they worked under him,” Emanuel said. “It spoke volumes that they came to make sure one of their comrades — their leader — was safe. It is also a testament. His father was a police officer. His brother was an officer. That sense of public service that exists in his own family.”
Police in Indianapolis said they had been searching for Brown since Saturday evening, after he allegedly went on an hourlong shooting spree, wounding three people in separate shootings across the city.
Brown knew all the three victims, police said. He was charged with attempted murder and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
The chain of events started when Brown was with his girlfriend, his nephew and the girlfriend’s friend in a car in Brown’s Indianapolis neighborhood. Brown began arguing with his girlfriend about their crumbling relationship, according to charging documents filed in Marion County Circuit Court.
Brown told the friend that she was to blame for the relationship problems, the documents state. Brown then allegedly pulled out a handgun and shot the friend.
The girlfriend, who was driving, stopped her car. The wounded friend and the nephew jumped out of the car and fled. Brown then allegedly continued to shoot at the friend and chase after her, according to the court papers. The friend later collapsed at a nearby gas station.
By the time officers arrived at the scene, Brown was gone. They found the woman inside the nearby gas station with at least one gunshot wound.
As police set up a perimeter, Brown carjacked a man in the parking lot of a nearby hotel, police said. Brown drove several miles to his home, where he ditched the stolen car, grabbed his dog and picked up his own car, police said.
Thirty-six minutes after the first shooting, Brown pulled into motel near his home and shot a second female victim, police said.
About 10 minutes after that, police said he shot a third victim, a man, several blocks away.
Then Brown allegedly stole a tractor-trailer in the Indianapolis area on Sunday from Ryder Transportation Services, where he once worked.
Brown’s Indianapolis neighbor, who didn’t want her name used because she fears for her safety, said that on Saturday night, officers had swarmed into her neighborhood on the north side of the city in search of Brown.
“Police were pounding on our doors, saying you’ve got to get in your car and leave,” the neighbor said.
Brown moved in with his girlfriend on West 72nd Place about two years ago, the neighbor said.
Reached by phone Tuesday, the girlfriend declined to comment.
Brown had a pet pit bull puppy named “Brutus,” the neighbor said.
The neighbor said she and other residents on the street saw Brown kick the dog or beat it with a belt.
“We had several arguments over the way he treated dogs, and the way he threatened other pets in the neighborhood,” the neighbor said.
At one point, Brown threatened to shoot anyone who set foot in his yard or touched his dog, the neighbor said, adding she never actually saw Brown with a gun.
It wasn’t clear how Brown made a living, but he told neighbors he had been in the U.S. Navy.
“Every time we’d argue, he’d bring it up,” the neighbor said. “I’d say, ‘I thank you for that, but …’ ”
When Brown first moved in, his girlfriend claimed he had a secret job working for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the neighbor said.
“If he needs mental help, I hope he gets it,” the neighbor said. “But I hope he never gets out.”