BY FRANK MAIN
The Chicago Tribune
|The muggers didn’t realize they were robbing the son of Chicago’s top cop.
If they did, they might have gotten rid of his cell phone.
But on Friday, when police took the three suspects into custody, they recovered the phone from one of them, officials say.
Police Supt. Phil Cline’s 30-year-old son was not injured in the Thursday night holdup, but he was Maced in the attack, said Monique Bond, a police spokeswoman.
“It goes to show you that anyone can be a victim of crime,” she said.
Cline’s son was riding on a westbound CTA Blue Line train between Racine and Western about 9:30 p.m. Thursday when he was attacked with pepper spray and robbed of a cell phone and cash, Bond said. He was alone with his attackers in the train car, Bond said.
The superintendent’s son got off the train at the Cicero L stop and called 911, Bond said.
Three “persons of interest” were taken into custody Friday morning near Roosevelt and State by Central District tactical officers already investigating a string of holdups, Bond said. They have not been charged in the mugging.
The men also are suspected in at least two other robberies on CTA trains and other crimes, Bond said. Their criminal backgrounds include a sexual assault, a gun assault and burglaries, she said.
Cline’s son holds a civilian job with the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federal law enforcement agency, Bond said. The robbers took his work phone, she said.
Authorities do not believe the theft of the phone compromised the agency’s security, Bond said.
Bond would not identify Cline’s son by name, saying that is the department’s policy regarding crime victims. Cline has another son who is a Chicago Police sergeant.
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