After a car chase, Forest Park police caught one of three men who allegedly entered Subway restaurant in the 300 block of Harlem around 11:30 p.m. last Saturday and robbed employees at gunpoint.
According to reports, the men walked to the back of the store, where an employee was washing dishes, and one man displayed a small caliber handgun. The three demanded that the restaurant’s two employees open the register, and took around $300. They then demanded that an employee open the safe. The gunman allegedly told the employee, “Open it or die.” The three also took the clerk’s iPhone and the restaurant’s landline phone and fled in a blue 2001 Ford Focus.
A patrol officer spotted the getaway car headed southbound on Harlem. The police car began to follow the vehicle. The Focus swerved into oncoming traffic lanes several times and ran a red light at Roosevelt Road. It then made a sudden turn east onto 19th Street in Berwyn.
The patrol officer saw the vehicle turn into an alley at Maple and 19th Street, but when the squad arrived, the Focus was parked in the alley with doors open and no one inside. A K-9 officer found a 29-year-old Chicago man hiding in a yard in the 1800 block of Wisconsin.
A search of the car uncovered among other things, a holster, work gloves, a landline phone and a black winter facemask. The Chicago man was taken into custody. He allegedly had on his person a large amount of cash and an iPhone.
Police have not yet filed charges against the suspect. He had a past conviction for residential burglary and was released in June from Hill Correctional Center in Galesburg.
This is the third time in one month the same Harlem Avenue Subway has been the scene of a crime. On Oct. 15 and 18, the restaurant was burglarized.
