Under the Radar

The other night I followed a story that would never make it into the papers due the nature of the crime and the result.

The police scanner sqauwked about a possible burglar running around in the gargantuan Merchandise Mart on the Chicago River. He had apparently robbed some store on the fifth floor and maced a couple of security guards.

Police requested multiple canine units to the Mart to track down the burglar. The burglar was first spotted the burglar at 10:30 p.m. one night. They searched for him all night and at one point had cornered him, armed with mace and an automatic handgun, in a stairwell on the eleventh floor.

The scanner didn't provide further details and security guards in the building said all night long that police had not found the person. The search was discontinued at around 6:45 a.m. the next morning because they had not found the man.

In the morning, the police were still lingering around the Mart, and were even holding up Chicago Transit Authority Trains at the Merchandise Mart stop, forbiding anyone from entering the trains at that stop until 7:45 a.m.

Being that the whole fiasco sounds like a scene from Ocean's Thirteen, and that Chicago Police were made to look like good ol' flatfoots, the story was not picked up by any of the news media.