Suspect in Alton K-9 death has criminal history

CHAMPAIGN COUNTY, Ill. – The man who shot and killed an Alton police K-9 last week had a violent past, according to records.

Police say 27-year-old Vernon Randle shot a police officer and K-9 officer Odin last Thursday on E. Sixth Street. Police returned fire and killed Randle. Odin died.

A search of court records shows that Randle transferred probation to Madison County from Champaign County in 2022.

That probation stemmed from a 2019 misdemeanor battery. Randle was sentenced to two days in jail and 18 months probation for that crime. He also had to undergo a mental health evaluation and enroll in anger management.

According to a Champaign Police Department case report, in December 2019, Randle got a job at Caterpillar in Champaign through a temp agency. After a few weeks on the job, Randle was in the break room with the person who had been training him when he punched that person in the face several times. The victim had to get a couple of stitches and had a chipped tooth.

Investigators later found out that the address the temp agency had on file for Randle was not a real address. It took the police a couple of months to arrest him.

Just months before that happened, in July 2019, Randle was charged in Tazewell County, Illinois, with unlawful use of a weapon, which is a felony. That also got him two days in jail and two years of probation.

More recently, in 2023, Alton Police put out a missing person alert for Randle. Alton Police Chief Jarrett Ford said that while he was a missing person, police in Chesterfield arrested him on a variety of felony offenses. However, FOX 2 has not been able to find any public record of charges out of Missouri at this point.

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