A man who’s on parole for a 2014 armed robbery that was captured on video is facing new charges following a Wednesday evening SWAT standoff in Rogers Park.
Police assigned to monitor local CPD surveillance cameras watched 29-year-old Kyle Samuels as he allegedly stood with a group of about 20 other people around 9:50 p.m. Cops have stepped up enforcement efforts in the area following a series of shootings.
At one point, Samuels appeared to pull out a handgun, hid behind a car, and then placed something that looked like a gun into a fanny pack he was wearing, prosecutors said during a bond hearing Thursday. He then got into a car and drove away. Patrol officers, tipped off by the camera monitors, pulled Samuels over nearby for driving without his headlights activated, according to prosecutors.
Police said Samuels manipulated his waistband and a fanny pack as they approached his car. He allegedly pushed officers’ arms out of the way and ran into an apartment on the 7600 block of North Ashland.
A woman who lives in the apartment stepped out and told officers that she was the only person inside. But police called in CPD’s SWAT team because they thought they heard the sound of a handgun being “racked” inside the apartment.
A SWAT negotiator convinced Samuels to step outside and he was arrested. Police found a loaded handgun inside a cardboard box within the apartment after the woman gave them permission to search her home, prosecutors said. Another loaded gun was allegedly found under the back seat of Samuels’ car. The second gun was reportedly stolen from a law enforcement officer in November 2018.
Prosecutors today charged Samuels with felony armed habitual criminal and misdemeanor reckless conduct.
His public defender, Emily Bock, suggested that Samuels might have needed the gun since he was hanging out with alleged gang members in a high crime area.
Judge David Navarro didn’t buy Bock’s defense. Instead, he ordered Samuels held in lieu of $1 million bail. Navarro also ordered Samuels held without bail on an Illinois Department of Corrections warrant while state officials prepare to revoke his parole.
Samuels was released from prison in October 2017 after serving half of a seven-year sentence that he received for a 2014 armed robbery in Edgewater.
In that case, two women pepper-sprayed and robbed a cellular store manager on the 6100 block of North Broadway and stole about $1,600 worth of phones, according to a 2014 report by ABC7.
The manager chased after the women but backed away after they jumped into a van occupied by Samuels and another man. Police stopped the van nearby and arrested all four occupants.
At the time of the robbery, Samuels was on parole after serving half of a three-year sentence that he received for being a felon in possession of a firearm in 2012, according to state records.
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