CHICAGO — The Chicago Police Department’s bureau of internal affairs has opened an investigation into two officers who searched Alphanso Talley last weekend before he was taken to Swedish Hospital, where he allegedly shot and killed Officer John Bartholomew and critically wounded his partner.

Sources with knowledge of the investigation confirmed the subjects are two patrol officers assigned to the Albany Park (17th) District who took Talley into custody on April 25 after he allegedly robbed a dollar store. The officers are not the two who were shot.

Another source with knowledge of the investigation said other officers’ actions also are the subject of a wide-ranging inquiry into what precipitated Saturday’s shooting.

Paperwork on the matter was not immediately made public. In a statement, a CPD spokesperson said, “There is an open investigation into the entire incident,” but would not address specific allegations against any officers.

Talley allegedly claimed to have swallowed bags of drugs and asked to be hospitalized. Before undergoing a CT scan, prosecutors allege, Talley removed a gun hidden beneath his hospital blanket and shot Bartholomew and his partner, who had transported him to the medical facility. How the weapon made it there remains an open question.

John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, the union representing rank-and-file CPD officers, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

CPD disciplinary records show one of the officers whose actions are now being examined was previously suspended for three days after he took part in an unapproved vehicle chase. That pursuit ended in a crash that left a teen boy with catastrophic injuries, and a lawsuit filed by his family was ultimately settled for $45 million.

Despite earlier felony convictions, Talley had been placed on electronic monitoring in another armed robbery case and his whereabouts were unknown leading up to the police shooting, creating controversy this week. A warrant had been issued for his arrest in March.

Parole paperwork obtained in a Freedom of information act request shows Talley was paroled before a hearing. The Prisoner Review Board ordered him to undergo cognitive behavioral therapy, abide by his electronic monitoring and home confinement instructions, while the Illinois Department of Corrections recommended further anger management counseling, records show.

Earlier Friday, police announced they had arrested a Maywood man as the alleged companion of accused cop killer Talley in the armed robbery that preceded the fatal shooting of Bartholomew.

Jeron Tate, 18, faces felony counts of armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated battery and aggravated unlawful restraint, according to a CPD news release.

According to the release, Chicago police and members of the U.S. Marshals Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Tate Thursday on South Carpenter Street.

He’s accused alongside Talley of robbing a Family Dollar at gunpoint in Albany Park after 8 a.m. Saturday. Prosecutors said at Talley’s detention hearing Thursday that he tried to open the store’s cash register and safe while Talley allegedly held the store’s 55-year-old cashier at gunpoint and pistol-whipped her.

Ultimately, prosecutors said, they robbed the store for about $110 and escaped on Lime scooters rented with an account tied to Talley’s email address. Police arrested Talley a few minutes after the store clerk called police, but Tate escaped and was only described as an “unknown co-offender” during Thursday’s proceedings.

At Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital, Talley allegedly used the same gun he’d used in the dollar store robbery to fatally shoot Bartholomew once the officer uncuffed him from the hospital bed before shooting and critically wounding a second officer, identified in court records as Nelson Crespo.

Judge D’Anthony Thedford ordered Talley held pending trial Thursday, telling him “if you are out, you are dangerous.” Bartholomew’s funeral services were announced a few hours later.

Tate appeared for a detention hearing at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse early Friday afternoon in a tan sweatshirt and light gray joggers, answering Judge D’Anthony Thedford’s questions in a quiet voice.

Prosecutors’ allegations were nearly identical to the first portion of Talley’s detention hearing: Tate and Talley allegedly walked into the dollar store moments after it opened, where Talley held the woman at gunpoint and Tate allegedly tried to access the cash register and safe. The pair took about $110 with a GPS tracker attached to it before they escaped on Lime scooters, prosecutors said.

As Albany Park (17th) police officers were arresting Talley with a wad of bloody cash in a nearby alley, prosecutors said Tate crashed his scooter, fled up North Albany Avenue and stashed the GPS tracker on the money in a Jewel-Osco on North Elston Avenue.

Tate went to a friend’s house, at 75th and Carpenter streets, and told the people there about the robbery at the Family Dollar, mentioning that his accomplice had used a 10-millimeter handgun.

Prosecutors did not name Talley during their presentation of the case, but said Tate had identified him as the man he was with at the dollar store. They did not state how Talley and Tate knew each other. Like his co-defendant, Tate had a warrant out for his arrest for an alleged parole violation.

At the time of the armed robbery Saturday, prosecutors said, Tate was on parole following 18 months in the juvenile department of corrections for a string of armed robberies and a carjacking committed in January 2025, when he was supposed to be on home confinement for a previous armed robbery charge.

An assistant Cook County public defender said Tate was currently a junior at Pathways High School and lives with his older sister, who works as a housekeeper. She asked to have Tate released on supervision like electronic monitoring and pointed out that Tate was not alleged to have physically harmed the store clerk.

But Thedford, on hearing the allegations against Tate, called him “the most committed and sophisticated menace we have in our community. It’s as if you think this is a video game, ‘Grand Theft Auto.’”

“I am certain you are aware that that armed robbery was the genesis of a CPD officer being killed,” he said.

He ordered Tate held pending trial, saying that other forms of pretrial release had “already been done and (have) not worked.”

Like Talley, Tate is next set to appear in court May 20.

(Tribune reporter Jeremy Gorner contributed.)

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