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Son Stabs Father to Death in Chicago
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Settlement Reached in False DUI Case
In 2008, Julio Martinez was falsely charged with a DUI, handcuffed to a metal bar, and beaten by a Chicago Police officer in a holding room. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Officer John Haleas was “indicted and relieved of his police powers in 2008 and pleaded guilty four years later to misdemeanor attempted obstruction of justice.” In early May, the City Council’s Finance Committee ruled that Martinez will be compensated $325,000 by the City of Chicago, “but not before aldermen demanded to know why Haleas was still being paid by Chicago taxpayers,” according to the Sun-Times.
Officer Haleas was once “Chicago’s most prolific officer in making DUI arrests,” according to the Sun-Times, having accumulated 718 arrests in 2005 and 2006. After he was stripped of his badge and accused of falsifying drunken driving arrests, more than 150 of these cases were dismissed. Yet after a five-day suspension that was reduced to one day, Officer Haleas was assigned to the Records Division and is still on the City of Chicago’s payroll.
Man Convicted for Eighth DUI
Timothy Morrow, 43, was sentenced in mid-May to 13 years in prison for his eighth DUI conviction, according to the Chicago Tribune. The Round Lake Beach man got his first DUI when he was 17, and since then, “has been cited nine more times with driving while intoxicated and twice with boating while under the influence,” Lake County Assistant State’s Attorney Ben Dillon told the Tribune. “Four of those cases ended with not-guilty verdicts or with charges dropped or reduced,” Dillon noted. Yet Dillon also told the Tribune that, “it defies logic that an individual that has been arrested for DUI 10 times continues to drink alcohol. It is clear that this defendant just doesn’t get it and doesn’t care.” Morrow, reports the Tribune, has already been to jail twice, “first in 1995 for DUI, then in 1996 for driving while his license was revoked.”
According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) statistics, about a third of DUI and DWI offenders are repeat offenders. “One study showed that about 3 percent of all licensed drivers had a prior arrest for DUI within the past three years, yet 12 percent of intoxicated drivers involved in fatal crashes had at least one prior DUI conviction in the past three years.” The same study reported that drivers with previous DUI convictions were about four times more likely to be involved in a fatal crash than first-time DUI offenders.
Aurora Man Sentenced to Six Years in Prison for Burglaries
A 27-year-old man has begun his six-year prison term, which he received after he was found guilty of two burglaries, including a break-in into a private swimming club in Naperville. Philippe A. Ayala, 27, was transferred in February from DuPage County Jail to the Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill, where he will serve his sentence, according to the Naperville Sun.
Ayala and his accomplice, Jonathan M. Klimek, 23, were caught during their burglary attempt. Police were dispatched to the club after a burglar alarm went off. Officers noticed that the club’s rear door had been pried open and spotted two hooded and masked subjects inside the building. Police were forming a security perimeter around the club when “both suspects fled the club in different directions,” according to a police spokesman. Both men were captured after a short chase. Some money and stolen property was recovered from them.
Ayala was linked to other burglaries in Naperville. However, he and Klimek were charged only of the break-in to the Naperville Tennis & Swim Club. The other burglaries netted the men about $1,400 and minor amounts of alcohol. Ayala is serving a concurrent prison term for a burglary he committed in 2007.
Two Charged after Armed Robbery & Police Chase
According to a recent article, two individuals were charged with armed robbery after holding up a bank in Altamont on Tuesday.
Annalisa McGhee and Altonio Graves were charged with armed robbery and aggravated robbery after the pair robbed the People’s Bank and Trust.
According to police, Graves walked into the bank and demanded money. This took place around 2 p.m. A staff member of the bank complied and Graves exited the bank with cash, though the exact amount he left with is unknown.
A grade school nearby was put on lockdown status after the suspect fled in its direction.
Graves ran past the school and quickly jumped into a vehicle that McGhee was driving. The two took off toward Interstate 70.
As the suspects headed into Bond County, police pursued. When county lines were being crossed, Bond County deputies put out stop sticks attempting to disable the suspects’ vehicle.
According to police, the suspects spun out of control in efforts to avoid hitting the stop sticks. After that, officers were able to take them both into custody.
Pastor Pleads Innocent to Sexual Assault
A La Grange pastor, the Reverend Donald R. Jung, 59, of the Second Baptist Church in La Grange, has plead innocent to the charges of assaulting a 9-year-old girl, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. Strangely enough, Rev. Jung admitted guilt to raping a 10-year-old girl more than 20 years ago, though he was never charged in that assault. Rev. Lynn Lacey, another minister at the church, told the Sun-Times that “that’s not the man I know… he’s an honest person.” The honest priest is being held on $750,000 bail on one charge of predatory criminal sexual assault, a crime that’s a felony in Illinois and could land him in jail for an extended period of time.
Sexual assault of children is not a new story, and unfortunately, not a new one in the realm of church or religion, either. The Catholic church has come under fire repeatedly in the 20th and 21st century for alleged sexual abuse that’s either been perpetrated or glossed over by high-ranking church officials. The same goes for sexual abuse in Boy Scout troops—the most recent case blew up in San Francisco in January.
Mayor and State’s Attorney Call for Harsher Gun Sentences
The year of 2013 has been bloody in Chicago, actually it has been the bloodiest start of the year since a decade ago. There were 42 homicides in Chicago for the month of January. And according to a CBS report, the number of homicides in Chicago was three times that of New York City, even though New York City has over three times the population.
The national attention for this violent month has spurred community leaders and politicians to plead for a change. On Monday February 11th, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel joined State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to ask for harsher sentences for gun crimes. They were also joined by Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.
Alvarez has asked lawmakers to consider lengthening the sentences for criminals arrested for illegally possessing guns. The current sentence is two years but Alvarez asked for an increase to three, with repeat offenders getting five years.
Rahm Emanuel had rough words for the current state of the justice system. He called it a “turnstile and a revolving door” which does not punish the offenders. The average person who is found guilty of a gun crime only serves half the time sentenced in jail with good behavior, usually only a year. He called for truth-in-sentencing guidelines for these crimes, which means that at least 85 percent of the sentence must be served.
Illinois Couple Charged with Portage Robbery
According to the Post Tribune, a man and woman from Harvey, Ill., were arrested after breaking into a Portage gas station in order to steal cigarettes, lighters, and 5 Hour Energy supplements. Their crimes got more serious, however, when they allegedly rammed a squad car with a stolen van and led police in an on- and off-road car chase to Lake Station.
Around 1 a.m. Sunday morning, a clerk at the Marathon gas station in Portage, across from the gas station the couple robbed, called police when he saw a person climb over an ice cooler and through a window into Luke Shell, a gas station on the opposite side of the highway.
As the couple left the gas station in a white contractor-style van and stopped for a light, a squad car driven by a Portage officer pulled up behind them. The officer was pursuing the van when the driver, Jerry Allen, 49, of Harvey, put the van into reverse and rammed the squad car on to an interstate ramp.
The chase continued on the interstate, with more officers getting involved, until Allen took an exit and veered off the pavement at a high speed. Police said the van bounced violently down the hill before hitting the bank of a ditch and going airborne. This did not stop Allen though, and he headed southwest toward the embankment of an onramp of the same interstate. After jumping that embankment as well, the van broke down and came to a stop in a grassy area.
Possible Solution to Juvenile Crime in IL
The Southern Illinoisan recently published an article arguing that there is never a time when daily news reports do not include information about crimes, arrests, and people being sentenced to prison.
The article stated that “the cover of Wednesday’s Local section, for example, included coverage about a West Frankfort woman suffering serious burns in a methamphetamine-related fire at her home, drug charges facing a Thompsonville man, car burglaries in Marion and an ATV crash leading to DUI charges against the driver.”
Even more than anecdotal evidence, there are also disheartening statistics.
In the fall of 2012, the Illinois Department of Corrections stated that there were 49,044 adults incarcerated in state penal institutions. While not an overwhelming percentage of the population, that number far exceeds the 33,700 inmates the correctional facilities were originally designed to hold.
While Illinois police departments may be tough on crime, the hoped-for decrease in crime in general has not been delivered. Police cannot soften their responses to violent crime; they have a moral duty to examine and carry out proactive efforts to bring an end to the root causes of crime.
Man sentenced on gun charges
A man from Fairfield, IL has recently been sentenced to a year in prison after he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm.
The indictment charging Michael D. McCullough, 58, was returned by a Federal Grand Jury on May 8. The indictment charged McCullough with possessing two firearms, a Smith & Wesson .357 caliber revolver and a Freedom Arms .22 caliber revolver.
The evidence that was introduced in court to support the guilty plea and sentence revealed that the guns were found after a fire broke out in McCullough’s unoccupied residence in Fairfield on August 28, 2011.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said that police were notified by fire fighters that, upon entering the residence to fight the fire in the room, they found five marijuana plants growing in an indoor grow operation in McCullough’s bathroom. After receiving the information, the Fairfield Police Department secured a search warrant for McCullough’s residence through the Wayne County State’s Attorney’s office. Shortly after receiving the warrant, the police located and seized the marijuana plants along with the two illegal firearms and multiple rounds of ammunition, taken from McCullough’s bedroom.
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