3 juveniles charged in armed robbery at Cicero, Illinois gas station, subsequent police chase

Three juveniles were facing charges Sunday night in an armed robbery that led to a wild chase from the west Chicago suburb of Cicero to Chicago’s West Side.

Cicero police said the suspects were part of a crew that targeted couriers removing cash from gaming machines at the Mobil gas station at 5147 W. Roosevelt Rd. at Laramie Avenue around 3 p.m. Friday.

Police said the robbers forced the couriers to the ground at gunpoint, ransacked their vehicle, and stole about $70,000.

The robbers sped off in a white sedan accompanied by two “trail vehicles,” Cicero police said.

A townwide camera system, which uses license plate readers, helped police identify the cars involved, as a chase took over Chicago streets and expressways. CBS Skywatch caught it all from the air and captured the cars traveling along the Eisenhower Expressway, around the Windy City Smokeout outside the United Center, and under the Chicago Transit Authority’s elevated Green Line tracks on the West Side.

The pursuit finally ended near West End and Kostner avenues in West Garfield Park, where two people were arrested. Another two people in a white Honda sedan ditched their car in an alley of a nearby apartment building. The three juveniles arrested had some of the stolen cash with them, police said.

Meantime, a black Chrysler that also fled the scene of the robbery was chased along the Eisenhower Expressway, Tri-State Tollway, Bishop Ford Freeway, and Borman Expressway into northwest Indiana, where two suspects were arrested after ditching the car in Hammond and running into the Little Calumet River, police said.

A Cicero police investigation resulted in cash, drugs, and guns being recovered from multiple vehicles and the West Side apartment, police said.

Each juvenile has been charged with two counts of armed robbery and one count of unlawful possession of a weapon. They have been transferred to the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center, police said.