Chicago police have been warning construction crews and contractors for months about teams of armed robbers who’ve been targeting work vans and stealing expensive tools at gunpoint. Now, charges have been filed in one such case, and the accused man is on probation for a gun case.
On the morning of September 3, a 24-year-old contractor was working on HVAC equipment on the roof of a building in the 1500 block of West Carroll when he saw exactly the kind of crime police had cautioned about.
Below him, a black Honda Accord pulled up to his van and a masked man got out with a pry bar. The contractor hit his key fob to trigger the alarm, spooking the would-be thief, who ran back to the car and sped away…