CHICAGO _ Six people were taken into custody and hospitalized Monday night after an armed robbery at a suburban Chicago ATM set off a police chase during which shots were fired from fleeing suspects' vehicle before it crashed into a tree, police said.
No officers were injured, and police believe most of the cash taken in the heist _ perhaps as much as $8,000 _ has been recovered, but not before some of it was spread throughout the neighborhood.
"When the car crashed, it rolled and the money went flying all over the place. But we recovered money at least one city block east of the crash scene," Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel said Tuesday morning. "We were recovering cash in the grass and parkways a block away. They probably rolled down the windows, but we're not sure if they threw it out or if the pressure from the open windows sucked the cash out of the car."
Weitzel said a contract employee was servicing the ATM about 9:35 p.m. just outside of the Bank of America at 3300 Harlem Ave. in Riverside, about nine miles west of downtown Chicago, when armed individuals approached. The employee reported that the robbers took between $6,000 and $8,000. Weitzel said officers had recovered more than $7,700 by Tuesday morning.
After the robbery, officers were alerted of a description of the vehicle and offenders and located the vehicle a block from the bank. Police began a pursuit.
Weitzel said police believe that during the chase one or more robbers fired their guns out of the vehicle, but it's not clear if they were shooting at someone or if they were simply firing into the air. No officers or squad cars were struck by the bullets, he said. According to the news release, police officers did not fire their weapons during this incident.
After going about another half mile, the fleeing car crashed into a tree in the 100 block of East Burlington Street and rolled, ejecting some of the occupants.
Six people were taken into custody, and all were transported to local hospitals with injuries that weren't life-threatening.
As of mid-morning, four male suspects had been released from the hospital and remain in police custody, while one male who is believed to be a juvenile was still hospitalized with a broken leg and a female suspect was being treated for internal bleeding, Weitzel said.
Weitzel said he did not expect charges would be filed on Tuesday.
The suspects were not being cooperative in providing their true identities or giving a statement about what occurred. Police expected to take fingerprints from the four that are in police custody in hopes of identifying them.
Weitzel said the female suspect appears to match the description of a 17-year-old girl who was reported missing in California earlier this year.
"The name she gave us is reported as a missing juvenile out of the state of California," Weitzel said. "But she's 18, and the person that's missing is 17. Her parents reported her missing in April or May and she might have had a birthday in like July."
Two 9 mm handguns and a .40 caliber handgun were recovered at the scene of the crash, and police also found shell casing from a 9mm along the pathway of the robbers' attempted escape.
Riverside's police department called in additional detectives from the Major Case Assistance Team, which pools detectives from other municipalities to assist with major criminal investigations. He said investigators were canvassing the area looking for video footage that may have captured the incident.
