Prosecutors have declined to file charges against the private citizen who caught a suspected CTA robbery offender and held him at gunpoint on a downtown subway platform Wednesday morning.
But the alleged robber is not as fortunate.
Prosecutors yesterday charged 29-year-old Michael Oliver of the Austin neighborhood with robbery in the case. He’s due in bond court today.
A 29-year-old man told police that another passenger lunged at him as he sat on a Blue Line train around 6:50 a.m. on December 4. The offender began punching the victim in the head and face, then took property from the victim before exiting the train car at LaSalle, police said.
That’s when a good Samaritan intercepted the alleged robber and forced him to lie on the platform at gunpoint until police arrived, according to witnesses and details provided by police.
The private citizen holds a valid Firearm Owner’s ID card, but prosecutors spent Wednesday mulling the possibility of charging him with a variety of weapons offenses, including possession of a firearm on CTA property.
Ultimately, they released him without filing charges, a Chicago police spokesperson said.
Oliver has been arrested five other times in Chicago this year for battery, domestic battery, lewd behavior, and trespassing at the O’Hare CTA station. The status of those cases were not immediately available.
