CHICAGO — A man involved in a 2019 shooting incident who disappeared after cutting off his electronic monitoring bracelet at a Walmart in suburban Chicago may have returned to Chicagoland, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.
Isaac Martinez, 31, was placed under electronic monitoring after his attorney begged a judge to release him from a “petri dish of possible contamination” at the Cook County Jail during the early days of the pandemic.
Two years later, Martinez was 30 miles from his River West apartment when he cut off his ankle monitor at the Bolingbrook Walmart, officials say. Authorities have not seen him since.
Prosecutors allege Martinez was the driver of a car from which another man fired into an occupied vehicle on May 22, 2019, in the 3600 block of West Division. Chicago police arrested both men and Judge Susana Ortiz held them without bail.
About eight months later, the COVID pandemic broke out and authorities released hundreds of inmates from prison to reduce virus transmission. Neither Martinez nor his co-defendant were allowed outside.
Court records show that on June 3, 2020, Martinez’s attorney begged Judge William O’Brien to release him on an ankle monitor after posting $20,000 bail paid by his mother.
The attorney argued that Martinez wanted to help raise his child and claimed that COVID was “at least a minimum of 99 times as potentially deadly as the flu, and perhaps as much as 2,999 times as potentially deadly as the flu.”
According to court records, Martinez was still under electronic monitoring in November 2021 when he was allowed to move from Berwyn to a home in the 700 block of North Morgan in River West.
Despite living within sight of the Sears Tower, Martinez and his ankle monitor were shopping at the Bolingbrook Walmart when he cut off his monitoring bracelet and slipped into the wind, officials said.
The sheriff’s office has not said why investigators believe Martinez is back in the Chicago area or where they believe he has been for the past two years. Anyone who knows where he is can contact the sheriff’s office at 708-865-4700.
While he was away, his co-defendant pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm in exchange for a 10-year prison sentence.
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