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Railroad thefts and guns: A deadly mix in Chicago


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#1 CNJRoss

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Posted 04 August 2015 - 09:46 PM

WTTW-TV Chicago, 8/3:
 

 

Gun Theft in Rail Yard Raises Security Questions

 

There is growing concern over the safety of train cars carrying shipments of guns in Chicago.

 

Such cars often sit unguarded in rail yards on the South Side. One alderman says she wants answers from the Norfolk Southern Rail Line after two recent incidents in which thieves broke into train cars, and shipments of guns were stolen.

 

The alderman, Chicago police, and federal investigators worry that train cars are becoming a pipeline for weapons ending up in the hands of potential criminals.

 

Incidents of theft

 

Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) is calling for Norfolk Southern Railway officials to appear at City Council hearings after two robberies of a total 124 guns from trains that sat in rail yards overnight.

 

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#2 CNJRoss

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Posted 23 November 2016 - 04:35 PM

WBBM Chicago, IL 11/22/16:
 

2 Investigators: Gun Thefts Continue At Chicago Railyards

 

(CBS) — Chicago Ald. Pat Dowell was so concerned about railyard gun heists that last year she wanted to hold a public hearing to question railway representatives.

 

But she tells the 2 Investigators the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and railyard giant Norfolk Southern “strongly encouraged” her not to go public for fear she would expose serious security deficiencies.

 

Dowell held off. Now, it’s happened again.

 

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#3 CNJRoss

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Posted 13 January 2017 - 10:25 AM

Chicago Sun-Times, 1/12/17:
 

Man gets more than 5 years in federal prison for trafficking guns

 

A Chicago man has been sentenced to more than five years in federal prison for illegally possessing and trafficking two dozen handguns, most of which were stolen from a train shipping firearms on the South Side in 2015.

 

Warren Gates, 49, had 24 stolen firearms, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s office.

 

Seventeen of the firearms were illegally purchased from co-defendants who stole about 111 firearms from a South Side rail yard on April 12, 2015, according to the statement.  .  .  .

 

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Edited by CNJRoss, 13 January 2017 - 10:27 AM.
Added link to U.S. Attorney's Office statement.


#4 CNJRoss

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Posted 03 March 2017 - 11:56 AM

AP, 3/3:
 

Railroad thefts and guns: A deadly mix in Chicago

 

 

CHICAGO (AP) — When street-gang thieves slipped with ease into a Norfolk Southern rail yard on Chicago's South Side and ripped locks off one train, they likely expected to see merchandise like toys or tennis shoes. What they beheld instead was a gangster's jackpot: box after box of brand new guns.

 

The guns had been en route from New Hampshire weapon maker Sturm, Ruger & Co. to Spokane, Washington. Instead, the .45-caliber Ruger revolvers and other firearms spread quickly into surrounding high-crime neighborhoods. Along with two other major gun thefts within three years, the robbery helped fuel a wave of violence on Chicago's streets.

 

The 2015 heist of the 111 guns, as well as one in 2014 and another last September from the same 63rd Street Rail Yard highlight a tragic confluence. Chicago's biggest rail yards are on the gang- and homicide-plagued South and West sides where most of the city's 762 killings happened last year.

 

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#5 CNJRoss

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Posted 24 April 2017 - 03:19 PM

AP via Chicago Tribune, 4/20:

 
Ex-Boston Celtics player found guilty in Chicago train-guns case
A former player for the Boston Celtics has been found guilty of receiving guns that were stolen off a freight train in Chicago.

 

A federal jury on Thursday found Nate Driggers guilty of being a convicted felon in possession of stolen guns.

 

SNIP

 

Driggers' National Basketball Association career was brief. He played in about a dozen games for the Celtics during the 1996-97 season.

 

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#6 CNJRoss

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Posted 06 May 2017 - 04:13 PM

AP via Chicago Tribune, 5/5/17:

Englewood mom, who said she bought guns stolen from train to protect family, sentenced to prison
Associated Press
 

A federal judge has called gun trafficking "the biggest public safety issue" in Chicago as he sentenced a 53-year-old Post Office worker to 24 days in prison and three years' probation for buying three guns stolen from a Norfolk Southern train yard.

 

Lori Shelton told Thursday's hearing she bought them because she needed them for self-defense in her high-crime Englewood neighborhood. The mother of two insisted she was "only protecting" her family.

 

But Judge John Tharp said buying stolen guns only encourages the violence "tearing" her "neighborhood apart."

 

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#7 CNJRoss

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Posted 15 September 2017 - 06:41 PM

Chicago Tribune, 9/14/17:
 

Former NBA player given prison for selling guns stolen in train heist

 

 

Just days after Nathan Driggers bought a load of brand-new Ruger pistols stolen from a South Side rail yard and resold them, weapons taken in the heist started showing up at crime scenes across the city, federal prosecutors say.

 

The first gun was found in April 2015 concealed in a vehicle during a traffic stop;  .  .  .

 

SNIP

 

Over the next several months, the stolen Rugers continued to turn up at shooting scenes, during police chases and in street stops of known gang members.  .  .  .

 

SNIP

 

On Thursday, Driggers was sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in the 2015 train yard heist of more than 100 weapons that were being shipped by rail from the Ruger factory in New Hampshire to a wholesaler in Spokane, Wash.

 

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#8 CNJRoss

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Posted 03 October 2017 - 08:46 AM

AP via U.S. News and World Report, 9/29/17:

 
Prosecutors Want Stiff Sentence in Chicago Train-Guns Case   Prosecutors want a tough prison sentence of 11 1/2 years for a purported Chicago street-gang member who broke into a train on the city's South Side and helped carry away around 100 new guns on their way to the Gunarama Wholesale store in Washington state.
 

SNIP

 

Federal prosecutors filed a sentencing memo Friday saying lesser sentences for six previous train thefts by Andrew Shelton haven't deterred him. It says he also hasn't been deterred from trafficking guns by his father's shooting death and by being shot himself.

 

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#9 CNJRoss

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Posted 03 October 2017 - 09:28 PM

Chicago Tribune, 10/3/17:
 

Felon behind theft of 100 guns from cargo train given 10 years in prison

 

 

Growing up on Chicago’s South Side, prolific train burglar Andrew Shelton understood firsthand the carnage caused by illegal guns.

 

When he was just 16, Shelton, a former Gangster Disciples gang member, shot three people and was sentenced to four years in prison, court records show. He survived three separate shootings himself in the 1990s, including a carjacking in which he was shot nine times. And Shelton’s father was slain in a drive-by shooting in 2001.

 

So when Shelton and his burglary crew broke into a freight train one night two years ago and saw box after box of shiny new Ruger firearms stacked in the rail car, he of all people “should have thought twice about throwing gasoline on the fire” of Chicago’s gun violence, a federal judge said Tuesday.

 

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