Warrant issued for suspect in fatal shooting of railroad security guard

SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE - An arrest warrant has been issued for a south suburban man accused of the fatal shooting of a Canadian National Railroad contracted security guard Saturday night in Harvey.

A warrant charging first-degree murder was issued Wednesday, according to Harvey city spokesman Sean Howard. However, he said the name of the suspect would not immediately be released. Police canceled a press conference Wednesday evening at which the warrant was to be discussed.

About 4 p.m. Saturday, a woman called police to report a man stealing her car, Howard said. The woman was able to get in another car and followed the man while speaking with police. After hearing sirens and realizing he was being followed, the man crashed the stolen car near 159th Street and Park.

He then ran towards a viaduct on the nearby railroad where he saw the CN security guard inside a vehicle at an intermodal facility, according to Howard and CN spokesman Patrick Waldron.

The guard, 38-year-old Tyrone Hardin, was found shot in the abdomen. He was taken to South Suburban Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 6:25 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. He lived in the 900 block of East 133rd Street in south suburban Riverdale.

The shooter stole Hardin’s vehicle, but then abandoned it in the 100 block 171st Street in East Hazel Crest, according to Howard.

Hardin, a Merrillville, Indiana, resident was working a second job as a security guard to earn enough money to provide a nice Christmas for his family.

“He assured me it wasn’t dangerous,” his wife, Gwinette Oliver, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “He said the worst thing is ‘I might get chewed up by one of the coyotes that come up there’.”

Hardin had a 5-year-old son with the 40-year-old Oliver, and was stepfather to her four other children. He also had a son from a previous marriage.

“I just want whatever person who did this to come forward because they done messed up everybody’s life,” she said Sunday. “Now you have children growing up without a father, and a wife who’s too young to have to do this.”

Hardin’s regular job, she said, was working as a security guard in the subdivision community where the couple lived. He worked infrequently for the railroad company, she said.

“He always texted me before he took an assignment to ask if I’d feel comfortable with it,” she said. “He didn’t think it was a dangerous. He was doing this for the extra money so we could give these kids a good Christmas.”

Oliver said police told her the gunman hopped a gate into the rail yard and set off a security alarm, which drew the attention of her husband, who was on patrol in a truck nearby.

Waldron said Hardin worked for a company contracted by Canadian National to assist railroad police in the yard in Harvey where he was killed.

“We would like to express our sincere condolences on this tragic loss to the guard’s family, friends and co-workers,” Waldron said in a statement issued Sunday afternoon.

Hardin was a caring father and husband, Oliver said.

“He was a good father to all my children in every way: birthdays, Christmas. He went to school functions if I had to work. He’d say, ‘Baby, don’t worry about it. I got it.’”

“He was just a wonderful person. He was funny. He was upbeat. He was caring.”