COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — Investigators on the hunt for a man who allegedly tried to run down a cop during a brazen Downtown shoplifting spree caught a break this weekend.
The suspect, while dressed as a woman, was busted offering to perform oral sex on an undercover police officer for $30, prosecutors said.
Instead of getting hit with a prostitution charge, Ronnell Anderson was slapped with an attempted murder charge for the November 2012 run-in with a Downtown cop.
Anderson, a 20-year-old cross dresser, was the fourth person charged in connection with the shoplifting incident at American Apparel that led to a street showdown with a police officer, who fired at the getaway car after the driver tried to run him down.
Assistant State's Attorney Bridget O'Brien said Tuesday that Anderson and three cohorts planned to rip off retailers along the State Street shopping district on Nov. 18, 2012, when they pulled up to the American Apparel store in a blue Buick.
Anderson and two co-defendants walked inside and started pulling thousands of dollars worth of clothing off of the racks, O'Brien alleged. They left without paying and jumped back in the Buick to make their escape.
Witnessing the scene unfold, a Chicago police officer ordered the alleged thieves to stop and stepped in front of the car.
But the driver, later identified by police as Anthony Shields, kept going, "forcing [the officer] to have to jump out of the way of the car to avoid being struck," O'Brien said.
The officer fired his gun at the Buick, but no one inside was hit.
A judge issued a warrant for Ronnell Anderson, a.k.a. Willie Anderson, on Nov. 27, 2012. But he remained on the loose.
According to court records, police learned about the warrant after Anderson was arrested Sunday morning in the 6400 block of South Kedzie Avenue for allegedly offering to give an undercover cop oral sex in exchange for money.
Anderson told police he was "a male dressed as a female," according to court records.
On Tuesday, Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. set Anderson's bail at $100,000.
Shields and two other co-defendants have also been charged in the case.
