Four Charged With Robbing Niles Woman At Gunpoint
(STMW) -- Four people are facing charges after police said two of them robbed a woman at gunpoint on her driveway in north suburban Niles early Thursday, while the other two sat in the getaway vehicle.
About 2:30 a.m., a 34-year-old woman coming home from work had just pulled in to her garage in the 9000 block of Churchill Circle in Niles when she walked out and was approached by two, semi-masked people holding guns, according to a statement from Niles police.
The two demanded her purse and another tote bag she was carrying, police said. After she handed the items to them, the two drove off in a light-colored SUV, police said.
The woman later told police she thought the two had been following her because she had seen their vehicle several times on her way home, police said.
About 15 minutes after police in the area were given the description of the SUV, a Cook County Sheriff's officer saw the vehicle and pulled it over on Central and Northwest Highway in Chicago, police said. As the officer waited for back-up to arrive, the two people climbed out of the SUV's windows and ran, police said.
The officer held three other people inside the SUV while other sheriff's officers and police from Chicago and Niles arrived on the scene. They found the victim's credit cards and her identification in the vehicle.
Police also found two loaded handguns in the SUV, which they later discovered were reported stolen to the Brookfield Police Department from a home burglary, police said.
Later that day, about 5:30 p.m., Niles police detectives conducted surveillance of an apartment building in the 1300 block of North Lorel in Chicago, where they believed the two people who ran off might be. They saw the two suspects leave the building and try to drive off in a waiting vehicle, but police stopped it and took the two in to custody.
The victim later identified the two as the people who had robbed her, police said. Police also determined that two others in the vehicle had also willingly followed the woman home—as she suspected—with the intention of robbing her.
Mercedes Alvarez, 22, of Berwyn; Julian Cortez, 21, of Berwyn; Peter Bloodgood, 22, of Chicago; and Julian Cortez, 21, of Chicago were each charged with armed robbery, police said.
They will appear in bond court Saturday at the Skokie courthouse.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2014. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)