A hell of a Maday
// September 18th, 2009 // No Comments » // Current Events
This has been one hell of a day plus.
For those who haven’t heard: prisoner Robert Maday was on his way up to court in Arlington Heights yesterday for arraignment on a bank robbery charge from last year. One his way up to court, he managed to get free and overcome one of the officers assigned to him. He then forced the driver over to the side of the road, forced his captors to unshackle him and then restrained and locked the both of them in the back of their own car. He then drove the car to the Meijer by our house, bought some clothes, and then would up carjacking another car, which he abandoned 2 blocks from our condo.
Upon learning of these events, many officers then descended upon our neighborhood (across the steet on Goebert), assault rifles loaded. The eventually turned up nothing.
On my way home the radio was relaying that the intersection of Algonquin and Arlington Hts. Rds. were closed off. So I was was wondering if I’d even get home much less wondering what kind of state I would find when getting there. Avoiding the intersection altogether, I took my usual Batcave way home and found only a few officers straggling behind. The drama (at least then) seemed over.
Thinking that Maday may still be in the area, we locked down everything we could and had quite the restless night.
I woke this morning to a WGN news bulletin stating that someone matching Maday’s description had carjacked another car (a grey Jetta) just north of where I work. Needless to say this was a bit surreal since this guy had been near both places where I spend the better part of my day. On top of this, I came to learn from Meg yesterday that this is the same guy who held her up at her bank last year.
So I get to work and find that there are at least 3 choppers circling the area looking for Maday. About 45 mins later (following the news feeds) we learn that he’s robbed another bank, this one in Bloomingdale (one he had also robbed last year) by Stratford Square.
Listening to the live feeds of the helicopter reporters over the Internet only complicated matters. Was he heading east on Lake St. toward 355 or Addison? Did he jack another car (a Chrysler 300)? Was he headed to St. Charles?
Discussions around the office predicted that Maday would go out in a blaze of glory considering that he stated that he never wanted to go back to prison. Luckily, this never came to pass.
Around noon, I got an IM from Meg stating that Maday had been caught after having crashed the jacked Jetta in West Chicago. It was ironic that it came down this way as I had mentioned shortly before this to my co-worker that I had a feeling that he’d be caught by doing something stupid. I even mentioned that someone would spot him and that a cop a few blocks away would respond. It didn’t come down exactly like that but it was a pretty accurate prediction.
So the drama is now over and Maday is back in custody (shackled ala Hannibal Lecter, I would assume) and hopefully, things can return to normal on the suburban streets.
I don’t feel the least bit sorry for Maday. I do feel for the people that lost something today, however. The dental assistant whose car was totaled, the father who suffered whiplash when Maday clipped his car in the high-speed chase to the end, and the home owner whose property was torn up by the tangled mess that was once the stolen car. Who’s going to help these people out? Those are the endings of the story you never hear about.
