Posted by
Arturick on Thursday, June 25, 2009 3:24:50 AM
Glad to see that Crook County, recently home to President Barack Obama, has it's head on straight...
Jun 24, 2009. South Chicago Suburbs, IL.
The State's Attorney's office in Cook County has decided to drop charges against a woman arrested several days ago at the Kohls department store in a south suburban mall. The woman used several teenage children to assist her as she stole $2700 worth of merchandise from the store, qualifying her for a felony charge. In the course of being arrested, she struck a uniformed security guard in the face and lied about the age of one accomplice, qualifying for an obstruction of justice charge as well.
The reasoning offered for dropping the charge of theft was that Kohls failed to ring up the woman for the $2700 in merchandise that she had concealed in purses and shopping bags, so it was not her fault when she left the store with the merchandise. Since no theft was committed by her accomplices, the obstruction of justice charge was also dropped.
The battery to a uniformed security guard, which is a felony, is considered a misdemeanor as a matter of Cook County internal policy. You read that right. As a purely bureaucratic matter, Cook County chooses not to protect uniformed security guards, ignoring laws put into place for their safety.
If you leave a store with $2700 worth of merchandise that you have not paid for, you have committed a felony. If you punch a uniformed security guard in Illinois, you have committed a felony. If you do these things in Crook County, you are safe as long as the bureaucracy is currently too busy fishing for bribes or taking paid vacations to seek justice.