Dozens of weapons, many of them assault-style, were seized from just two houses during a criminal round-up in the northern suburbs Wednesday. Sheriff Tom Dart says, the vast majority were taken from a home where two mentally ill people with a revoked FOID card were living.
"Thirty five guns inside that house across the street from a park. A school just down the road," Sheriff Dart said.
The seizure is just one example of the work being done by the Cook County Sheriff's Office in conjunction with local police departments over the last two years. They are called community resource initiatives.
"We're doing everything from picking a hardened criminal off the street to picking debris out of a local park so the kids have a nice place to play in," Brian White, Cook County Sheriff's police, said.
Using Lincolnwood's shuttered Purple Hotel as the base of operations, Cook County paired up with Morton Grove, Skokie, Evanston and Lincolnwood police departments to check up on dozens of sex offenders and parolees. Several arrest warrants were served, and a few arrests made as well.
"We are looking for individuals who are wanted on murder all the way down to misdemeanor theft charge," White said. "We have a list of locations where these offenders are known to hang out or to be present."
