EVANSTON, Ill. — A single burglary crew smashed its way through 25 businesses in two Chicago suburbs before dawn on Thursday, November 12 — 16 stores and restaurants in Wilmette in less than half an hour, and nine more along Central Street in Evanston — then fled on foot after a Chicago police helicopter tracked the vehicle officers believe the crew was using, police in both suburbs said. No arrests had been made in either series as of Friday.
Source: The Daily Northwestern
24 minutes in Wilmette
The Wilmette spree began at about 3:45 a.m. on Thursday, according to a Village of Wilmette news release reported by The Daily Northwestern. Wilmette police officers first responded to a possible burglary at 3:47 a.m., and at 4:09 a.m. they were alerted to the sound of breaking glass in the Village Center business district, the village's downtown commercial area. By the time the reports stopped, 16 businesses at two locations in the village had been broken into, ABC7 Chicago reported.
Two responding officers located a suspicious vehicle within blocks of the Village Center business district but were unable to stop it, the release said. A Chicago Police Department helicopter later located the vehicle, and officers observed several offenders fleeing from it on foot. In their preliminary investigation, Wilmette police found that a single group carried out the burglaries and had used a vehicle that was reported stolen from Oak Forest, a suburb southwest of Chicago, early that Thursday morning.
Nine storefronts on Evanston's Central Street
In neighbouring Evanston, officers first responded at about 4 a.m. to burglary alarms and reports of broken storefront windows along Central Street, according to an Evanston Police Department news release. All nine businesses reported glass damage, and several reported that cash had been stolen. The nine businesses are Mustard's Last Stand, The Spot, Preston's Florist, Hewn, Pinto Thai Kitchen, Bluestone Evanston, the Christian Science Reading Room, CustomEyes Evanston and The Spice House — a florist, restaurants and small retailers on one of the North Shore's best-known local shopping streets.
Source: Evanston Police Department, via The Daily Northwestern
At Mustard's Last Stand, a hot-dog restaurant, camera footage shows people approaching at about 4 a.m. holding large rocks, co-owner Lonnie Starkman told The Daily Northwestern. They threw a rock through the window, two people went inside and took money from the register, and a car was waiting out front — the whole break-in lasted less than a minute, he said. It was the restaurant's first burglary in “quite a while,” Starkman said. “I'm quite upset. I've got a lot of property damage, and a register damage, and it's gonna cost me a lot more money than they probably got out of here,” he said.
Neither department has published a total loss figure, the names of the 16 Wilmette businesses, or suspect descriptions. Evanston police did not elaborate on the burglaries when asked, and Wilmette police did not respond to The Daily Northwestern's request for comment. Anything beyond the figures above — how much cash was taken in total, or whether the same crew is suspected in other suburbs — has not been confirmed by police.
A pattern Chicago-area police know well
The Village of Wilmette's release placed Thursday's break-ins in a pattern seen across the Chicago area, in which a group of offenders carries out a series of high-volume break-ins in a short period of time — hitting many storefronts in minutes, taking cash, and leaving before officers can converge. Evanston detectives are investigating a possible tie between the Central Street burglaries and the Wilmette series, The Daily Northwestern reported. Police have not announced that the two series are definitively linked, and they have not connected Thursday's crew to any earlier spree.
The cost lands on small businesses
For the owners, the immediate loss is rarely the cash in the register. As Starkman's account shows, a smashed storefront window, a damaged register and a lost morning of trade can cost a small restaurant or retailer far more than the money taken — and 25 businesses across two suburbs faced that same cleanup on Thursday morning. Wilmette and Evanston are affluent North Shore suburbs in Cook County, just north of Chicago, where commercial streets such as Central Street and the Village Center are built around independent shops rather than malls — the kind of businesses with the least cushion for repair bills and interrupted trade.
What happens next
Both investigations are open and no arrests have been announced. The questions police are working through are whether the Evanston and Wilmette series were one crew's single run, where the stolen Oak Forest vehicle was abandoned and what surveillance footage from 25 storefronts shows. Anyone with information will be asked to contact Evanston or Wilmette police. Awaaz Punjab will update this report if police announce arrests, name the Wilmette businesses or release a total loss figure.