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| Wayne Jones is accused of threatening a clerk with a metal baton to steal a Coors Light. |
A career criminal, sentenced to a combined 67 years in prison since 1983 and currently on parole, allegedly walked into a Boystown convenience store Monday, entered the walk-in cooler, took a Coors Light, and headed for the door.
When a clerk asked him to pay, 55-year-old Wayne Jones pulled out a collapsible baton and threatened him, police said.
Despite the fact that Jones took the beer while threatening the clerk with bodily harm—the very definition of “robbery,”—a Cook County State’s Attorney refused to charge the fourteen-time convicted felon with the crime, police said.
Instead, Jones is being charged with retail theft, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and two counts of being a felon in possession of a weapon. A judge set his bail at $100,000.
Jones is currently on parole after serving half of a ten-year sentence for robbing and battering a victim on the street at State and Madison in 2012.
Jones, who lives in the South Side’s Roseland neighborhood, snagged the beer at 4:40 a.m. from the cooler at 7-Eleven, 3726 North Broadway, according to court records. Cops found him enjoying his “taste of the Rockies” nearby and took him into custody.
According to state data, Jones’ previous prison sentences include:
• Four years for aggravated battery of a merchant in 2008
• Three years for retail theft in 2007.
• A concurrent three-year sentence for retail theft in 2007.
• Two years for retail theft in 2006
• Three years for retail theft in 2004
• Eighteen months for retail theft in 2002
• Thirteen years for carjacking in 1995
• Two years for narcotics in 1994
• Five years for aggravated battery in 1987
• A concurrent ten-year term for robbery in 1987
• Five years for burglary in 1983
• A concurrent five-year term for theft in 1983
• Another concurrent five-year term for burglary in 1983
• Yet another concurrent five-year term for burglary in 1983
