Chicago police recovered almost $270,000 value of merchandise once they arrested seven members of a crash-and-grab crew that killed a person whereas fleeing on the Magnificent Mile this week, prosecutors mentioned. However many accomplices stay at massive, together with one other $422,000 in purses and different luxurious items stolen from the Louis Vuitton retailer at 919 North Michigan Avenue.
Prosecutors mentioned not less than a dozen folks pulled as much as the shop in six stolen automobiles simply earlier than 5 a.m. Thursday. Movies present a pickup truck backing up and ramming the shop’s home windows, permitting the crew to achieve entry. The theft crew then loaded a considerable amount of merchandise into the stolen automobiles and fled.
A type of automobiles was a black Kia allegedly pushed by 30-year-old Dejuan Wingard. Prosecutors mentioned Wingard sped down Michigan Avenue at 77 mph, blowing by way of crimson lights till he slammed right into a Honda CR-V pushed by 40-year-old Mark Arceta of Skokie. Arceta had a inexperienced gentle at Ohio Road and was heading to his last shift at Northwestern Memorial Hospital earlier than beginning paternity go away. He was killed within the crash. His spouse gave start to their son quickly after.
One other getaway automobile, an Infiniti, fled police down Lake Shore Drive earlier than leaping a concrete barrier and blowing out its tires close to Millennium Park. Prosecutors mentioned two occupants, 22-year-old Anthony Hemphill and 19-year-old Keith Perkins, tried to run however had been caught. Two others escaped.
All seven males face costs of homicide in the course of the fee of a forcible felony, housebreaking, and felony theft. Wingard can also be charged with reckless murder. Prosecutors mentioned Perkins briefly slipped out of his handcuffs at a police station and fled, resulting in an extra escape cost.
Hemphill, Perkins, 37-year-old Alton Jackson, and 26-year-old Harvey Fisher had been had been ordered detained on Saturday afternoon. The three different defendants stay hospitalized with non-life-threatening accidents. Detention hearings will probably be scheduled as soon as they’re launched.
“This case is a heartbreaking instance of the menace that these organized retail theft operations pose to your entire group,” State’s Legal professional Eileen O’Neill Burke mentioned. “Not solely is the financial vitality of our metropolis compromised by these crimes, however these offenders pose a bodily hazard to each one among us who reside and work right here. We won’t tolerate it, and we are going to proceed to hunt detention and use all of our prosecutorial instruments to deliver accountability and acceptable costs to those that commit these brazen assaults.”
An on-line fundraiser for Acosta’s household had raised greater than $21,000 as of Saturday night, with almost $14,000 of that raised since Saturday morning.
