A man wanted for murder who was on the run for two months since escaping custody in Mississippi has been arrested miles away in Chicago after an over 12-hour long SWAT standoff, the U.S. Marshals Service said.
Joshua Zimmerman, 30, escaped custody from the DeSoto County courthouse in Mississippi, where he was scheduled for a hearing, on June 14, the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office said.
At the time, he was being held in the county for armed robbery and attempted murder. He was also wanted out of Texas for murder allegedly committed in September 2023 and for a parole violation out of Connecticut, the U.S. Marshals Service said.
After two months on the lam, he ended up in Chicago.
The U.S. Marshals Service, which took over the case, said it had looked for Zimmerman in multiple states and investigators “recently developed information that Zimmerman was in Chicago.”
From there, the U.S. Marshals Service’s Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force positively identified Zimmerman in a seafood restaurant in the 2300 block of Madison Street in Chicago’s West Side, where “it is believed he was working.”
During the arrest attempt, Zimmerman retreated into the ceiling of the restaurant and barricaded himself, the U.S. Marshals Service said.
The Chicago Police Department’s SWAT team also responded following a request to aid in the arrest.
Zimmerman was the only person inside the restaurant during the standoff, Justin Smith, the chief deputy of the DeSoto County Sheriff’s Office, said in a news conference Tuesday.
Officials said the standoff lasted over 12 hours until Zimmerman surrendered and was arrested at 8:30 a.m. local time (9:30 a.m. ET) Wednesday morning.
The restaurant where Zimmerman barricaded himself is located just half a mile away from the United Center, which was hosting the Democratic National Convention Monday and Tuesday. However, “there is no connection or threat to the event or those attending,” the U.S. Marshals Service said.
Mississippi authorities intend to extradite him back to DeSoto County.
“We would like to get back into our detention facility so that we can gather the remaining facts surrounding his escape,” Smith said.
In his June escape, Zimmerman walked out of the courthouse wearing pajamas, crossed the street to a gas station and there convinced a man to give him a ride to Memphis, NBC Chicago reported. It was believed that he did not have an accomplice in his escape.
DeSoto County Sheriff Thomas E. Tuggle said in a statement Wednesday that the department’s team is on the ground in Chicago, “fully prepared to commence the next phase of our investigation.”
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