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| Craig Echols was accused of battering two security guards at the Trump International Hotel & Tower. | CPD; Trump |
The man who brutally beat a 61-year-old security guard at the posh Trump International Hotel in March has been sentenced to probation.
Craig Echols, 24, allegedly attacked the guard and another security officer after they confronted him for smoking in the lobby and damaging property. The older guard was knocked to the ground, suffering a broken finger, torn ligaments in his right knee, a fractured cheekbone, and facial trauma that required 17 stitches to close, according to court records.
This week, Echols pleaded guilty to a single count of aggravated battery of a security officer. In exchange, prosecutors dropped fourteen additional aggravated battery charges as well as a criminal damage to property count. Judge Timothy Joyce sentenced Echols to two years probation and 164 days time served.
The hotel attack came just four months after Echols was accused of beating a 39-year-old woman with a baseball bat, records show. In that case, a woman emerged from an apartment carrying a bloody baseball bat. Her face and head were covered with blood, cuts, and contusions, police said. The woman reported that Echols had beaten her with the bat.
But Echols—whose hands were bloody, according to police—countered that the woman swung the bat at him, so he disarmed her and struck her with it in self-defense. The charges were dropped after the woman stopped cooperating with prosecutors.
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After many, many arrests for stealing cash and property from cab drivers in the downtown area, Darreece Euring has been sent to prison. CWBChicago has reported on Euring’s antics several times.
The 23-year-old was on probation for stealing from cabbies when prosecutors charged him with stealing credit cards and a wallet from two more taxi drivers on Wacker Drive in January.
Euring reached a deal in which he pleaded guilty to theft and unlawful possession of a debit-credit card in exchange for a pair of concurrent two-year prison terms. Judge Joyce oversaw the case.
Court records show Euring has been charged again and again with ripping off cabbies:
• Nov. 5, 2017 — Accused of distracting a Near North taxi driver and stealing $125 from the cab’s center console. The cabbie failed to appear in court and charges were dropped.
• Nov. 30, 2017 — Cops in the Loop were flagged down by a taxi driver who identified Euring as the man who failed to pay for a cab ride and then stole a bundle of cash from the taxi’s front seat. Cops said Euring was carrying $27 in one dollar bills at the time of his arrest. Judge Anthony Calabrese sentenced Euring to eight days time served while awaiting trial.
• Dec. 16, 2017 — Euring was arrested in the Loop after he refused to pay for a short cab ride. He was not accused of stealing any money from the driver this time. Prosecutors dropped the case.
• Mar. 12, 2018 — A cabbie flagged down cops on the Mag Mile and reported he picked up Euring and a woman at Water Tower Place. After traveling one block, Euring allegedly said: “forget it, I’ll grab an Uber.” While the woman distracted the driver, Euring allegedly grabbed the cabbie’s phone from the front seat and fled.
While police were talking with that driver, another cabbie pulled up and said that the two people in his back seat had just tried to steal his phone from the center console. Guess who the two people in the back seat were? Yep! Euring and the woman.
• April 1, 2018 — According to prosecutors, Euring was in the Loop stealing from a taxi driver on this Easter morning. Police say a taxi driver flagged them down in the 200 block of North Wells around 11 a.m. and reported that his passenger had begun kicking the back of his seat, saying he had lost his phone in the cab. When the cabbie pulled over to help the passenger look for his phone, the man reached into the taxi’s center console, removed $43, and walked away without paying his fare, the driver said. Cops caught up with Euring whose alleged “verbal admission” was captured on police body cameras, according to court records.
• Just before noon on May 18th, 2018, cops on patrol saw a taxi driver chasing Euring in the 300 block of South Michigan. The officers caught Euring, and the cabbie explained that Euring had just stolen $59 from the driver’s side door of his taxi in the first block of West Adams, police said. Cops allegedly found the cash in the 21-year-old’s pants pocket.
When officers ran Euring’s name through a database, they reportedly discovered a warrant out for his arrest in connection with another theft from a cabbie on May 8th. That time, Euring stole a cab driver’s phone at State and Madison, according to prosecutors.
Editor’s note: A third case that previously appeared in this post has been temporarily removed pending verification of court details.
