Crime & Safety

UPDATE: Results From Warrant Sweep in South Suburbs

More than 1,000 active warrants were pursued Friday morning across suburbs and Chicago.

Results

Warrant Arrests

51 people were arrested on warrants Friday. Charges on served warrants include deceptive practices to strong armed robbery.

Parole Compliance Checks

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17 people were checked on meeting terms of parole.

Two parolees tested positive for drug use

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Four Arrests were made for Possession of Cannabis, and Unlawful Use of a Weapon:

  • Six firearms were recovered
  • 160 grams of Cannabis seized
  • $6,000 in cash taken

Registered Sex Offender Compliance Checks

11 sex offenders were checked on meeting terms of their status.

  • one subject was arrested
  • five were met terms of compliance
  • five are still pending investigation 

2 p.m., Orland Hills Police Department

Final numbers of arrests are still coming in, though at least 50 people were arrested on warrants during the sweep.

Six guns, including a tec-9 semi-automatic gun, were collected, as well as "large quantities of narcotics," according to Orland Hills Police Chief Tom Scully.

"Guns were taken from parolees who had no business with them in the first place," Scully said. "Those guns would have certainly been used again in crimes."

Scully said the sweep was "extremely successful."

We will update again once the final arrest, parole and sex offender check numbers come in.

1:15 p.m., Mokena

Ending in Mokena, team 9 tried to serve a warrant to 11700 W. 187th St., to find that the house originally on that address when the warrant was issued had been torn down. A subdivision has since taken over that lot.

The team also tried to serve a battery warrant in Auburn before going to Mokena, only to find an empty house. A piece of mail was found for the person named on the warrant, and someone is taking care of the house, since the grass was mowed recently.

The house itself was empty of furniture or other household items.

The team made one arrest out of nine warrants. The eight warrants remaining were updated with new information, as most of them had outdated addresses listed.

11:25 a.m., Englewood

A lesson was learned today. Aircards don't work all that well in a moving car, hence the gap in updates.

Since South Holland, the team has traveled to Calumet City, Kennedy Park, West Englewood and Englewood, but has not made another arrest.

In Calumet City, a different person now lives at the last known address, while no one answered at addresses in Kennedy Park and West Englewood. The team got a few more leads from another Englewood address on a woman wanted for fleeing.

The team is now looking into one more lead in Englewood.

8:30 a.m., South Holland

The team of 10 officers from ISP, as well as officers from Thornton, University Park, Kankakee and Evergreen Park police departments, made their first warrant arrest of the morning.

Robert Hammond, 29, of 900 block of 170th Street in South Holland, was arrested on an original Thornton warrant for possession of cannabis.  Hammond answered the front door of his registered address, and willingly was put into handcuffs before he was placed in a police cruiser.

The Thornton officer had to leave the sweep as he was called out for a different task force effort.

Now the team is heading to serve an Evergreen Park warrant to a person in Calumet City.

8:15 a.m., University Park

No arrests were made in University Park. The officers saw people running away from a boarded up house at the corner of Union and Regent drives as they approached and got into position. They didn’t catch the people who ran, but did find several small empty baggies with residue around the house’s front lawn and an air pistol.

“A lot of times they use older airguns that look like real pistols at a glance,” State Police Special Agent Michael Minniear said. “Today they have to have orange placed in the barrel so people know they aren’t real.”

6:40 a.m., University Park

Five Illinois State Police officers along with University Park police started the sweep in University Park at the apartment building where a man is wanted for domestic battery.

“You hear domestic battery you know he’s willing to fight,” said Special Agent Michael Minniear.

Jerome Johnson, 27, of the 700 block of Burnham Drive in University Park, is the first to be pursued. Other people wanted on warrants for drug-related charges will be next. This group will be going after warrants from South Holland and Evergreen Park police departments after University Park.

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Between 250 and 300 police officers will take part in a first-time coordinated sweep to make arrests on more than 1,000 active warrants from south suburban police departments.

Officers will be pursuing people wanted for a variety of felonies and misdemeanors across the south suburbs and Chicago. About 65 different municipal police departments, as well as Illinois State Police, Illinois Department of Corrections and personnel from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office will participate.

Officers will also be checking sex offender registration to see if any convicts have violated terms of parole, such as failing a mandatory drug test.

“The most important aspect is to come back safe,” State Police Commander Terry Lemming said while briefing the participating officers.

The effort is called Operation Mike in honor of Tinley Park Police Chief Mike O’Connell who died in May. The sweep was assembled by the South Suburban Association Chiefs of Police, and is described as the largest coordinated warrant sweep the association has pursued.

“Each town has people with active warrants for arrest who don’t show up for court dates,” said Orland Hills Police Chief Tom Scully, who also is president of the chiefs association. “You chase them when you have time, but you can get so busy with day to day operations that there is no time left to chase them. We will try to engage as many as we can. People committing crimes tend to run in cliques, so maybe people around (those with active warrants out) may be involved in other crimes or there might be contraband around.”

Patch staff will be riding along with officers during the sweep. We will continue update throughout the day.


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