A Chicago man has been sentenced to almost six years in federal prison for illegally carrying a handgun during a looting spree in Lakeview during a night of widespread civil unrest on May 31, 2020.
Ricky Green, 28, was convicted by a jury last year and received a 69-month prison sentence on Thursday, according to the US Attorney’s office in Chicago.
Chicago police responded to a report of cars lined up with suspected looters outside the Target around 11:48 p.m. that night. Officers found three vehicles parked in an alley near the store’s rear loading doors, a CPD spokesperson said at the time. The cars sped away as cops approached.
Federal authorities on Friday released a short video from the alley that allegedly showed Green leaning on a car with a gun inside a red cross-body bag while two men tried to pry the store’s door open.
Cops pursued the cars, and three men jumped out of one vehicle and fled on foot near the intersection of Lincoln and Wellington moments later. Green was quickly apprehended behind a nearby home, and police recovered the red bag from behind some latticework, according to federal court records.
He was on parole on a state charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm at the time. Federal prosecutors later took up the May 2020 gun case.
After taking Green into custody, police conducted a yard-to-yard search for the other two men. They eventually found Jeremy Ben, 30, as he walked out of a home on the 1400 block of West Wellington, a CPD spokesperson said. He had been hiding in a child’s room inside the house and even took time to make a phone call while he hunkered down, according to a source. Ben was on parole for armed robbery at the time.
After pleading guilty to criminal trespass to a home in July 2021, he was given a two-year sentence.
You can support CWBChicago’s start-to-finish tracking of court cases by becoming a subscriber today
