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| Parnell Barners (inset) beat and robbed a man in the 3500 block of North Halsted, police said. | CPD; Google |
A lifelong violent felon who is on parole for battering a man with a brick near the Belmont Red Line station in 2014 is now charged with robbing a Boystown resident on the Halsted bar strip last month.
Police arrested Parnell Parners, 53, at his Uptown home around 11 p.m. last Thursday after the victim positively identified him in a photo array as the robber, police said. The 34-year-old victim had been beaten in the face and body, pushed to the ground, and robbed in the 3500 block of North Halsted Street around 1:30 a.m. on March 2. The victim, who lives in Boystown, lost $100 and an iPhone to the assailant, police said.
Barners is charged with one count of felony robbery and has been ordered held without bail by Judge Stephanie Miller.
On May 20, 2014, Barners was arrested and charged with aggravated battery after he beat a man in the head with a brick in the 900 block of West School Street. Barners pleaded guilty, received a six-year sentence, and was paroled in May 2017.
State records show that Barners has a lengthy history of violent crime that stretches back to the Reagan Administration.
Prior to the brick attack, his prison sentences included: four years for aggravated battery in 2008; three years for narcotics in 2007; 30 months for shoplifting in 2005; 10 years for robbery in 1995; three years for theft and another three years for narcotics in 1992; seven years for burglary and another seven years for home invasion in 1987; three years for aggravated battery in 1987; and five years for robbery and another five years for aggravated battery in 1984. He began prison life in 1982, when he was sentenced to four years for robbery, six years for a different robbery, and 4 years for theft.
