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| Kevin Carrau (L): Brian Conner; and Clarence Davis (R) face mob action and other charges. | Chicago Police |
Cook County Judge Anthony Calabrese, facing three defendants accused of mob action and theft in Lakeview, shook his head in disbelief on Wednesday. All gang members and two sporting extensive arrest records, the trio had been charged only with misdemeanors and all were free on recognizance bonds.
“Every nation gets the government it deserves,” Calabrese said, obviously dissatisfied with the work of those who went before him in the case.
Shortly before 9 o’clock on Friday night, at least six different 911 callers reported seeing a group of men testing car doors, threatening people with golf clubs, and obstructing traffic near the 2900 block of North Halsted.
Arriving officers soon found three men matching the callers’ descriptions. Two of the names may sound familiar to CWBChicago readers: Brian Conner, 25; Clarence Davis, 27; and Kevin Carrau, 22, were all arrested and charged with various crimes including mob action.
Conner and Davis, both Black P-Stones according to cops, call the Night Ministry at 4711 North Ravenwood their home. Carrau lives in the Hermosa neighborhood.
While looking for the men, cops found a car with its door open in the 2700 block of North Dayton. They tracked the car’s owner down, and he told them that his golf clubs were missing from the vehicle. And workers at a CVS Pharmacy on Lincoln Avenue at Fullerton had a video showing the three men shoplifting booze, earbuds, and underwear, according to prosecutors.
Conner is charged with two counts of retail theft and mob action. Davis is charged with retail theft and mob action. Carrau, an Imperial Gangster according to police, is charged with retail theft, mob action, and—because he was allegedly still holding one of the golf clubs—theft of lost or mislaid property.
All three men were released on recognizance bonds per Judge Sophia Atcherson.
In court on Wednesday, Judge Calabrese was told that the men used the golf clubs to threaten people and took whatever they wanted from stores while swinging the clubs around.
“Calabrese was P*SSED,” a friend of the blog reported. “He asked [the prosecutor] to read all their previous sentences and arrest records. He was ‘gobsmacked’—his word.”
“I see Calabrese often and this is as angry as I’ve ever seen him. He told the [prosecutor] he knew it wasn’t her fault, but he couldn’t believe that these guys were all terrorizing people because they were stronger and bigger than anyone else, that it was ‘mob action,’ and not only were they not in jail, they were only being charged with misdemeanors.”
Before being called before the judge, the dynamic trio “were all sitting together in the back…just giggling about what was going on.”
Long Histories
Brian Conner has racked up a list of 33 criminal cases in Cook County. In addition to the case we just told you about, he is currently awaiting trial for trespassing at a Boystown 7-Eleven store and also awaiting trial for trespassing at a Department of Homeland Security building in the Loop.
CWB has reported on Conner’s arrests around Boystown for years. Accused of shoplifting and threatening security at Jewel-Osco last October. Shoplifting from the same store in 2015. Threatening to kill staff members at the Center on Halsted in 2015. Brandishing a two-bladed knife to threaten other Center on Halsted workers that same year. And, then, there was that suburban robbery in 2013. The list goes on and on.
We mentioned Clarence Davis just a couple of days ago. In September, Davis jumped in front of a cop who was chasing a robbery offender near Addison and Lake Shore Drive. “What, you can’t catch him?” he taunted the cop. “You’re too slow?” Davis pleaded guilty last year to obstructing police and received a 60-day sentence from Calabrese.
“Calabrese is always so amiable and polite to everyone but he was steamed,” our man on the scene said. “I just kept thinking, damn, Kim Foxx, this is what you have unleashed on us.”
