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| The minivan used to penetrate the store remains on-scene this morning. |
Chicago’s hottest crime wave hit close to home early this morning as a group of thieves crashed a minivan into the Clark Street Best Buy store and stole an undetermined amount of merchandise. The bold break-in and get-away were made easier by understaffing in the 19th district, which could only muster up an 8-minute response time.
A swarm of witnesses began reporting the heist in progress at 2650 Clark shortly before 5AM.
A minivan registered to a man from the South Side’s Washington Park neighborhood had crashed through a Clark Street window and onto the sales floor. Then, a group of offenders stormed into the sales floor and started loading up two other cars with merchandise.
Char dogs and chocolate shakes were still being whipped out at the nearby Wiener’s Circle, where witnesses told us that between four and seven black men were involved in the theft. People at a nearby McDonald’s agreed.
While the thieves made entry near the store’s computer, printer, and hard drive section, store managers have yet to determine exactly what was taken.
The bandits abandoned the minivan at the scene and escaped in two other vehicles. One of the cars was a beige Ford Focus and the other was a black 2013 Chevy registered to a couple from the Southwest Side Ashburn neighborhood. They were last seen heading east on Wrightwood and south on Lake Shore Drive.
Nearly all 19th district officers were tied up at the time of the burglary and the first officer on scene arrived about 8 minutes after the first 911 calls came in. Even more incredibly, the first unit to arrive actually came from a different district.
(Case HY103476)
