For more than a year, businesses across Chicago have been getting slammed by burglary crews that break in and steal cash, liquor, and safes during overnight hours. CPD has published countless warnings about the crimes that occur most frequently at locally owned restaurants and bars.
In a pair of warnings issued late last year, detectives linked a single burglary crew to at least 30 business burglaries in neighborhoods stretching from Beverly to Wicker Park to Jefferson Park.
Now, prosecutors have charged one man with participating in some of that group’s burglaries. Markell McCamury, 18, of the 100 block of North La Crosse, was first arrested by cops in Wicker Park.
Around 3:45 a.m. on December 2, a CPD camera surveillance operator saw an orange Nissan Rogue with a broken passenger window parked in the 1500 block of South Damen. A similar car had been used in other burglaries, so the camera operator sent patrol units to the scene.
The cops arrived quickly enough to see McCamury and two accomplices running out of Paulie Gee’s, a pizza shop at 1566 North Damen, according to a CPD report. Two burglars fled in the Nissan Rogue—one in the driver’s seat and one on the hood.
Officers arrested McCamury after a short foot chase, the report said. He allegedly had $4,761 when the cops took him in.
Prosecutors charged him with burglarizing Paulie Gee’s and breaking into Lucky Dog, 7151 16th Street in Berwyn, that same night, according to court filings.
CPD later issued an updated community alert that linked the same burglary crew to three additional break-ins in Chicago that night, but McCamury is not accused of participating in those.
Investigators were able to link him to some previous business burglaries, though, and prosecutors have charged him with breaking into Simón Tacos, 4263 North Milwaukee, and Rainbow Cone, 9233 South Western Avenue, on November 6, according to criminal complaints.
While CPD has said four or five men worked together to commit the burglaries, he is the only person charged with any of them.
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