Man kills friend in case of mistaken identity

CHICAGO - An off-duty correctional officer shot and killed a friend and co-worker Saturday whom he mistakenly believed was trying to carjack a vehicle being driven by his wife, police said.

Arlin McClendon, 36, was killed while trying to pull a joke on a longtime friend in an area where two dozen carjackings have occurred in less than a year, authorities said.

"It is a tragic accident, a case of mistaken identity," said Calumet City police Sgt. Larry Smith. "The victim and the shooter were lifelong friends. They worked together."

McClendon was driving in the suburb just south of Chicago at about 1 a.m. with a colleague when he spotted a sport utility vehicle that belonged to his friend.

"McClendon began honking and flashing his lights in an attempt to get the vehicle to pull over," Smith said.

What McClendon did not know was that his friend's wife was driving the SUV with the couple's 4-year-old child. His friend, who authorities did not identify Saturday, was in a third vehicle, Smith said.

Once the vehicle stopped, as a joke, McClendon ran up to it and started pounding on one of the windows, said Bill Cunningham, a spokesman for the Cook County Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail where the two men worked.

He also began pulling on a door handle.

The woman's husband did not recognize McClendon, whom he had worked with for years at the Cook County Jail, and mistakenly believed his wife was being carjacked, Smith said.

"He got out of his car and identified himself as a police officer and shot his friend," he said.

McClendon, who was shot multiple times, was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

Over the last six months, 24 carjackings have occurred in Calumet City and "that may have played into" the off-duty officer's belief that his wife was being carjacked, Cunningham said.

The two men both started working at the jail in 1992.

Correctional officers are not issued firearms, but are allowed to carry weapons while off-duty, he said.

No charges had been filed.