Thursday, February 28, 2013
A Chicago man was trying to protect himself and his Plainfield girlfriend when he shot her former boyfriend twice in the back, his lawyers said.
When Ricardo Gutierrez shot Javier Barrios twice in the back in October 2007, he was trying to protect his girlfriend, her young daughter and himself, his lawyers said Thursday. "It's about domestic violence. It's about self-defense. It's about fear and how people react to fear," attorney Jeff Tomczak said of what led Gutierrez, 23, to shoot Barrios, who was 18 when he died. "It's not a case of murder," said Gutierrez's other lawyer, Paul Napolski. "It's about a set of circumstances wherein a young man is forced to protect the woman he loves and the 10-month-old child he adores from the threat of immediate harm." Regardless, both Gutierrez and the woman he loves, Gabriela Escutia, 24, are up on murder charges, and Gutierrez's trial started…
Monday, November 5, 2012
A 325-pound local man allegedly took on firefighters and the police this weekend.
It took a crowd of cops and firefighters to take down a 6-foot-2, 325-pound local man—or was it the other way around? No matter who dropped who, when it was all said and done, it was 38-year-old Duschaun Neal who was going to jail. Neal was charged with aggravated battery and resisting or obstructing a peace officer in connection with the 3 p.m. Sunday incident at his 306 Walnut St. home. Someone from that address first called the law to investigate a report of a violation of an order of protection, police said. Later, a woman identified as Neal's wife called 911 and said there was a fire at the residence, police said. Firefighters showed up, and so did Neal, who—fire or no fire—wanted to go inside his house, police said. When he was …
Friday, November 2, 2012
A local teen was jailed for allegedly shooting at a woman.
A teenage boy went to juvenile jail for letting bullets fly at a woman driving on Englewood Avenue Halloween night. The 15-year-old was taken into custody at a residence on Luther Avenue about 5 p.m. Thursday and booked into River Valley Juvenile Detention Center on a charge of aggravated discharge of a firearm. The teen allegedly shot up a woman's car on Englewood Avenue about 5:30 the evening before. The woman was heading south on Englewood when the teen, who was riding in a car ahead of her, stuck a gun out and fired twice, police said. One bullet reportedly hit the hood of the woman's car and the other shattered a window. The gun attack was in retaliation for a previous shooting investigated by the Will County Sheriff's Department, …
Thursday, November 1, 2012
The missing woman's boyfriend told the Joliet police she stole a bunch of his cash and one of his guns, a detective said.
The Joliet police are searching for a missing mother of three whose boyfriend said she stole a load of his cash and one of his handguns, investigators said. Linda Fellenbaum, 33, had moved in with the boyfriend about two months ago and was last seen departing his 3608 Crockett Court home on foot, said Joliet police Cmdr. Brian Benton. Not only was she on foot, said the missing woman's mother, Deborah Barr, but she was barefoot, having left her shoes behind in the boyfriend's house. "Her car, her phone, her shoes," Barr said of the various items her daughter left at the home of her boyfriend, 40-year-old Donald Wolak. The sudden departure from Wolak's home was on Oct. 21. Five days earlier, Benton said, the boyfriend—whom he declined to …
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
The Joliet man charged with the Monday night murder of a local teen was in court, and so were the slain young man's brother and sister.
When the Joliet man charged with gunning down a local teen in a Lois Place apartment went before a judge for his first court appearance Wednesday, the brother and sister of the man he allegedly murdered walked up to stand only feet away from him. No words were exchanged between Darrel Perkins, 53, and the siblings of slain 18-year-old Tevin Bridges. When the brief hearing ended Perkins was sent back to jail to be held on a $3 million bond. Bridges' brother and sister left the courthouse without commenting. Two nights earlier, minutes after Bridges was pronounced dead, his brother, 20-year-old Treston Adams of 403 Summit St., was allegedly less subdued. Adams tried to make his way past police officers so he could get at Perkins, police said…
Monday, October 22, 2012
A man waving a gun around was apprehended during a traffic stop, police said.
Cops on the lookout for a man who was waving a gun out the passenger window of a car tracked him down and captured him, but only after subduing him with a Taser, police said. The alleged gun-waver, Edward Williams, 28, of 508 S. Joliet St., was apprehended on East Cass Street shortly before 4:30 a.m. Sunday. Police said they got a call about a man waving a gun from the passenger window of a car driven by a woman. Officers reportedly spotted a car matching the description of the one they were looking for and pulled it over at the corner of Algonquin and Cass streets. A woman was driving, a man was on the passenger side, and a pistol was under the seat, police said. When officers told Williams he was under arrest, he made a break for it, …
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Alm, a Republican candidate for the 86th District house seat, was threatened at (BB) gunpoint Tuesday and told to get out of the neighborhood.
OUTSIDE CHICAGO -- There's rough politics, and then there's staring down the barrel of a gun while you're out campaigning in the middle of the day. And that's what Republican 86th District state house candidate Ryan Alm said happened to him while he was walking the streets of Joliet's west side and knocking on doors Tuesday afternoon. "It couldn't be stranger," Alm said. "I couldn't imagine this would ever happen." Get all the latest Joliet news in your inbox every morning. Sign up for our free daily newsletter. Alm said he was speaking with an older woman outside her home near the corner of Madison Street and Black Road about 1 p.m. when a young man rode by on a bicycle and asked, "Is there a problem here." Alm assured the cyclist there …
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
A man with a pistol couldn't outrun the long arm of the law, police said.
A man fleeing from the cops pulled a pistol from his waistband and tossed it into a Grover Street yard but still could not escape the officers running him down, police said. Christopher Mosley, 21, of 114 Reichman St. was apprehended on nearby Fouser Court about 5 p.m. Monday. Police said Mosley was among a group of men loitering on Grover Street. When officers approached, the men reportedly took off running. The officers went after the men, police said, and shouted orders at them to stop running. Those orders reportedly went unheeded. During the chase, Mosley snatched a pistol out of his pants and threw it in a yard, police said, but did not make it much farther before he was tackled. Officers reportedly recovered the gun. Mosley told …
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Is vigilante justice an American right?
Right off the bat, I'll 'fess up to not knowing all the facts. Indeed, I don't think anyone ever will. What we do know is that 17-year-old Trayvon Martin is dead, and George Zimmerman admits to shooting him. Details are still coming out. As I write this, the story I'm reading in numerous news reports is that the teen was walking through a somewhat affluent neighborhood north of Orlando. He was a tall, unarmed black teen wearing a hoodie over his head after dark. Zimmerman was an armed neighborhood watch volunteer. He followed Martin, and reported the "suspicious" teen to the police. The police told Zimmerman to stop following Martin. Zimmerman kept it up, and got out of his SUV carrying a gun. An ABC report says the pseudo-cop sounded …
Friday, March 16, 2012
The Shorewood heist from a week and a half ago was followed by one in Plainfield Thursday.
The Thursday morning robbery of an AT&T Wireless store in Plainfield wasn't the first such stickup in Will County in recent weeks. Plainfield police noted a Shorewood Verizon wireless story was robbed by a masked bandit more than a week ago. Shorewood Police Chief Aaron Klima explained that the cops were keeping the March 6 holdup under wraps for fear of copycat crooks. Klima said the masked bandit went into the Brookforest Avenue Verizon store about 10:45 a.m., brandished a handgun and ordered a clerk to fill a bag with merchandise. The gunman took no cash, Klima said, but absconded with Verizon products. While both the Shorewood and Plainfield robberies were committed before noon and were pulled by masked men who completely passed on …
Stosh Wytonic
5:29 pm on Saturday, March 2, 2013
Illinois State Crime Commission "State's Attorney of the Year" for two of the four years he was our State's Attorney. He's a good lawyer, period. He earned his pay as State's Attorney, and I'm sure he is on this case. more ›