A person’s determination to smoke whereas driving the Purple Line was all it took for Prepare dinner County Sheriff’s Police to strike up a dialog and uncover he was carrying a loaded firearm, officers mentioned Monday. He’s at the very least the third particular person arrested by the company for possessing a gun on CTA trains since its officers started patrolling Chicago’s rail traces late final month.
At roughly 7 p.m. on April 16, sheriff’s officers patrolling a Purple Line automotive noticed Angel Williams, 25, smoking and escorted him off the practice on the 69th Avenue cease, officers mentioned. Whereas detaining him for disorderly conduct, the officers allegedly found he had a loaded firearm.
Courtroom data present prosecutors didn’t ask Choose Luciano Panici, Jr. to detain Williams, who’s charged with illegal possession of a weapon.
The Prepare dinner County Sheriff’s Workplace launched its CTA patrol operations late final month after the transit company got here underneath intense federal stress to handle persistent security considerations on town’s practice traces. Since then, sheriff’s officers have appeared in dozens of social media movies, confronting disruptive passengers and making arrests. At the least three of the company’s arrests have concerned allegations of unlawful possession of firearms on the Purple Line.
On March 31, sheriff’s officers stopped Carl Adams, 40, for transferring between practice vehicles by means of emergency doorways at ninety fifth Avenue. They took him into custody for disorderly conduct and a custodial search of his backpack allegedly revealed a loaded pistol. Prosecutors charged Adams with being a felon in possession of a weapon, and Choose Deidre Dyer ordered him detained pending trial.
Courtroom data present Adams was positioned on federal probation in August 2025 in reference to a separate gun case stemming from a February 1, 2020, arrest, when Chicago police discovered him carrying a loaded pistol in his waistband within the 4500 block of West Jackson Boulevard.
Federal prosecutors outlined a legal historical past for Adams spanning greater than twenty years, together with retail theft in 2020; residential housebreaking and manufacture or supply of heroin in 2012; soliciting an illegal enterprise in 2008 and 2005; possession with intent to ship cocaine and possession of THC in 2006; legal trespass to a car in 2005; possession of a managed substance in 2003; and manufacture or supply of hashish in 2002.
On April 7, sheriff’s officers working the 69th Avenue platform round 4:50 p.m. heard loud music coming from inside a practice, based on the sheriff’s workplace. They boarded and detained Vincent Jones, 27, for utilizing a transportable speaker, and each officers and Jones obtained off on the 79th Avenue cease. A search of Jones and his belongings allegedly turned up a firearm.
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