To his former neighbors on the Far South Side, Arlin McClendon Jr. was the “guardian” of their block who would watch out for young children and pull out a portable basketball hoop for local teenagers on hot summer evenings.
The Cook County correctional officer also was known for his sense of humor and acting out spontaneously if it meant getting a laugh out of someone.
“He was a nice guy; he would keep you laughing,” said Loretta Jones, a former neighbor who knew him most of his life.
On Sunday, Calumet City police continued to investigate whether McClendon’s sense of humor may have gotten him killed shortly after 1 a.m. Saturday. Apparently as a practical joke, he and two other off-duty correctional officers pulled over an SUV that they believed was being driven by a colleague and feigned a carjacking attempt in the 500 block of Bensley Avenue in Calumet City, police said.
The colleague’s wife and child were in the SUV, but the colleague, who was in a vehicle ahead of them, got out and fired at McClendon, 36, killing him, police said. An autopsy Sunday indicated that he died of multiple gunshot wounds, a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
Illinois State Police and the Cook County state’s attorney’s and sheriff’s offices are also investigating the shooting. Officials have not released the shooter’s name.
McClendon had moved from Chicago’s Roseland neighborhood to Calumet City more than a year ago. He had two sons, former neighbors said.
“He was such a fun, cool guy,” said Shelita Preston, who had known him for several years. “He would do something fun, just off the wall. It seemed to go the wrong way … it ended in tragedy for him.”
She said McClendon always watched over people on his old block. He stood in the cold in December when he came back to the neighborhood and saw her hanging outdoor Christmas lights at about midnight. He also would sit on his porch stoop, reading the paper with a watchful eye as children played on the block, and occasionally he would baby-sit Preston’s 6-year-old daughter.
“He was the guardian of the block,” Preston said.
Former neighbors said McClendon followed his father into the law enforcement field. His father was a veteran Chicago police officer, said Anthony James, who watched McClendon grow up.
“A lot of the kids looked up to him,” James said. “He was a hardworking kid.”
Even in the area, which once boasted more than 10 police officers living on their block, McClendon stood out because he was mild-mannered, former neighbors said.
“He was a regular guy. With some people when they get in a position of authority, they let you know it. You would never know it from him,” D. Williams said.
McClendon and the shooting suspect began working at Cook County Jail in 1992 and had been friends since, said Bill Cunningham, a sheriff’s office spokesman.
McClendon worked in the transportation division, driving inmates to court hearings; the suspect worked in the jail’s Division 5, a medium-security facility, Cunningham said.
The man is on paid suspension and has been stripped of his police powers pending the outcome of an internal investigation, Cunningham said. The man told investigators that headlights from the vehicles at the scene prevented him from identifying his friend, Cunningham said.
Calumet City resident Heide Kendall, who lives on the block where the shooting occurred, said she heard three gunshots and called police. She said the man who allegedly fired the shots was holding a cell phone and looked distraught.
“He was pacing up and down the street saying, ‘I don’t know what happened, I can’t believe this,'” Kendall said. “He started beating on the stop sign and saying, ‘Oh my God, oh my God.’ “
