CTA Crime Still an Issue

In the first two pages of the CWB blog, there are no fewer than five separate CTA crimes in recent days along with a few others that finally reached resolution via the courts. 

Another criminal who (A) can't read signs, (B) doesn't recognize the red circle BANNED meaning and (C) happens to be a felon who can't have a gun in the first place:

• A 43-year-old Chicago man is facing gun charges after Cook County Sheriff’s Police allegedly found him rolling a joint on the Red Line and then discovered a loaded gun in his jacket.

  Around 2:35 p.m. on May 31, deputies were conducting a routine patrol on a train car at the 69th Street station when they saw Kenneth Stapleton rolling what appeared to be a cigar stuffed with a green leafy substance, the sheriff’s office said Friday.

  Stapleton was detained for violating CTA rules, and a records check turned up an active warrant connected to a forgery case, officials said. During a search, deputies recovered a loaded firearm from his jacket and learned that he did not have a Firearm Owner’s Identification card or a concealed carry license, according to the sheriff’s office. Prosecutors approved a charge of aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon later that day.

That Red Line certainly is a shit-magnet.

This one got Federal charges:

• Federal prosecutors have charged two men with kidnapping a DePaul University student and taking him on a terrifying crosstown Red Line ride during which they repeatedly threatened to kill him while making electronic bank transfers and issuing ransom demands to his friends and family.

The sheriffs can't do it along, so a couple of successful federal prosecutions would go a long way to making the CTA ride-able again.