According to Troy Daniels, Chief and Director of Public Safety at Parkland College, there have been four laptop thefts in recent months. Daniels details that the “…first one occurred on February fifth and the other one occurred on February 7,” and that there are “no suspects” for these first two cases.
The earliest of the two most recent occurred on March 19, according to Daniels. Daniels explains that in this theft, “…there [were] two male juveniles that came to the college and one kind of distracted one of the employees. The other one popped in an office, took a computer and they took off running.”
The direction they took while making their escape is what Daniels tells out of the “west side of Parkland and they kind of started to go South, kind of on the East side of Duncan road in that little field area.” But they were caught on their way away from the college, getting stopped, Daniel says, “just before they got to Bradley”. Daniels adds, “They’re interviewed, they’re detained based on descriptions that came from the employees that were involved and also based on photographic evidence that we collected.
They were both banned from the school at that time and one of the juveniles was picked up by Champaign police department on some other burglary cases that they had him identified in and they ended up taking him over to the Juvenile Detention Center. The other juvenile we released to his mother…”
As for the second occurrence, Daniels claims it took place on April 1st, detailing: “…we had an employee contact us on the second floor of the C wing, and she said that her door was partially opened and that a male came and pushed her door open and stuck his head in and then asked where the bathroom was. Where her office is, directly across the hall is the men’s bathroom.” Further detailing, the employee then saw there was a second male juvenile present. After she noticed, she started to feel unsafe and locked herself in her office. The main suspect’s accomplice then started knocking again and again on her door to get her to open it. Her concern increased greatly so contacted another Parkland employee and then proceeded to call public safety
As public safety was called, the two suspects ran off and were seen by an officer and then ran West and then South just like they did in the previous theft. Eventually, they were stopped at Bradley Avenue. Daniels explains that the first suspect who poked his head through the door took off running. The other suspect was stopped and interviewed by an officer but provided a fake name that he was banned under at the time he was released. As for the prior juvenile, he was eventually located by officers and arrested. “He was, Daniels detailed, “arrested for criminal trespass, obstructing identification, giving a false name, and also at that stage he was detained because he was a suspect in the burglary which was him inserting himself into an office here at the college.”
As for the suspects’ identities, Daniels was able to provide these details: “In both cases, there were two suspects, but there was one common one”. He adds, “The main primary suspect had a different accomplice the first time and a different accomplice the second time. He’s someone we view as being the primary suspect and he’s the one that Champaign police had identified as also being the suspect in their burglaries.”
The suspects are middle school students, but Daniels claims they are “definitely not from any school that is connected to Parkland or near Parkland”, mentioning also that there is an investigation being done to see if they are related to the thefts occurring on February 5 and 7.
When it comes to the juvenile criminal justice system, Daniels believes that it’s best to “…try to always divert youth from the criminal justice system, try to find a different way for them to learn a lesson as long as it’s a low-level crime and a misdemeanor crime and that no one gets hurt. He believes we should give juveniles a second chance to learn from their mistakes. But, Daniels shared that more severe measures should be taken with juveniles that keep up with their behavior. He explains, “In this particular case, this particular juvenile has shown that nothing has reached him yet, so hopefully they’ll find a way to get him to learn.” One of the major goals of the country’s criminal justice system is rehabilitation, especially in the juvenile system. Hopefully, as Daniels said, the juveniles involved in these cases learn their lesson and get any help they may need.