The suspect in the murder of Oak Park police Detective Allan Reddins was ordered held without bond this afternoon after a hearing in a packed courtroom at the Maybrook Courthouse in Maywood.

In denying a defense motion for release on bond, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Ciaccia Lezza ruled that “The weight of the evidence against the defendant is overwhelming.”

She called Jerrell Thomas a “real and present threat” to public safety and set a Dec. 20 court date for his arraignment in Room 103 at the courthouse.

Thomas, who is recovering from a gunshot wound to the leg, sported a large white bandage atop his scalp. Wearing light brown jail scrubs, he was brought into the courtroom in a wheelchair by one of six Cook County Sheriff Emergency Response Team officers. The courtroom was packed with another half dozen bailiffs, and approximately 30 Oak Park police officers, including Deputy Chief Dave Jacobsen.

Thomas’ public defender, Christa Petty, objected to the number of law enforcement officers present. Saying “this is a small courtroom,” she termed the number of law enforcement officers present “oppressive.”

“I don’t see how the number of officers (present) will affect my ruling,” the judge replied.

“This is just not a fair hearing,” Jerrell’s attorney complained, alleging that she had been asked to have people there for Thomas give up their place to officers.

Ciaccia Lezza noted that Zoom was an option for watching the proceedings, and that several people monitoring the courtroom were doing so. The police officers present, she said, were family to the fallen officer.

“They may not be blood, but they’re family,” she said.

Petty had little to work with in making a case for Thomas’ release. She told the judge her client was “a lifelong resident of Chicago’s West Side, who graduated from Michelle Clark High School in Austin” and attended “some college.”

At the time of the crime, she said, Thomas was living with another man and two women in an apartment near Cermak Road and Cicero Avenue, and was currently “not working.”

However, Assistant State’s Attorney Eugene Wood laid out a narrative of a cold-blooded attack on two police officers the morning of Nov. 29, a deadly attack that was captured on various closed-circuit cameras and police body cams.

Wood told the judge that Thomas had stood inside the Chase Bank branch at Lake and Marion streets for 15 minutes before his encounter with Detective Reddins, concerning bank staff. A branch manager had spoken with Thomas, and as the suspect left the building, he pulled a handgun from his waist and walked out, according to Wood.

The bank manager locked the entrance door and had his staff call the police.

By the time police were notified and responded to the area, Thomas was near the Oak Park Library, according to the prosecutor. A police sergeant, identified as “MR,” in the area did a U-turn and got out to confront Thomas, he said.

Around that same time, Wood said, Reddins arrived in a separate car and also got out and approached Thomas from Scoville Park to the east of the library.

Wood said the sergeant approached Thomas from Lake Street, while Reddins approached from Scoville Park. When the sergeant asked to talk with Thomas, the ASA said, the suspect reached to his waist, and both the sergeant and Reddins told him to “keep his hands up and don’t reach down.”

However, Thomas continued to reach down, and as both he and the two officers backed away from each other, the suspect reached up with both hands holding a gun and fired at both officers, the prosecutor said. Wood said a camera from the library captured Thomas firing three shots at one officer, then a second later three more shots at the other.

Reddins, Wood said, started to run to his squad car for cover, but was hit on his right side, “above the waist.”

At that point, a third officer, identified only as “DV,” approached from the east and shot Thomas in the leg, Wood said.

Officers rushed to assist Reddins, but he was unresponsive. Wood told the judge that the bullet had lacerated Reddins’ liver, pierced his lung, entered the aorta and “lodged in his sternum”

He was pronounced dead at Loyola Medical Center in Maywood at 10:10 a.m. The doctor who pronounced Reddins dead listed his cause of death as a homicide.

The handgun Thomas used, Wood told the judge, had been stolen from his sister three days earlier.

“The mitigating factors are extremely outweighed by the aggravating factors,” Judge Ciaccia Lezza said. “The presumption is great that he committed first-degree murder of a police officer.”

Asked by the judge at the end of the bond hearing if he had any questions, Thomas answered, “No. I have none.”

Outside in the hallway after the hearing, Deputy Chief Jacobsen was asked to comment on Petty’s contention that the presence of 30 of Reddins’ police colleagues at the bond hearing for his alleged killer was “oppressive.”

Jacobsen said he had no comment.