2 charged with stealing TVs, other electronics from freight train on West Side

CHICAGO (CBS) -- Two men were charged Saturday night in connection with the theft of TVs and other electronics from a railroad shipping container on the West Side during a brazen daylight theft.

Derrick Weathers, 53, was charged with one misdemeanor count of theft and one felony theft of drug possession. Lemar Hollingsworth, 21, was charged with one misdemeanor count of theft.

A total of six people had been taken into custody after the theft on Friday, but two were released by Saturday morning. It was not immediately clear if the two others who were taken into custody would face charges.

The hours-long daylight heist left one expert on crime questioning how the brazen burglary was allowed to happen.

"This is disheartening to me that something like this could take place with such casualness," said Loyola University Chicago professor of criminology Arthur Lurigio.

The thieves were caught on camera pulling flatscreen TVs out of the back of a freight train car, walking with them to waiting cars, sometimes even passing a parked Chicago police unit with its lights on.

Union Pacific officials said it happened while train was stopped in Austin, waiting for an interchange with a partner railroad.

Police sources said Chicago police officers waited more than an hour for Union Pacific officers to respond and secure the tracks.

Union Pacific leadership acknowledged this sort of crime in a 2021 earnings call, when there was a rash of train burglaries in the Los Angeles area.

"I'll call that a relatively unique situation where something that used to be a 'nuisance,' call it, two years ago, members in a neighborhood would see a train not moving and might take advantage of trying to pop open a box and see what's inside. Today that's more organized, and we have our arms around it," then-Union Pacific CEO Lance Fritz said at the time.

One day after the train heist, a discarded and smashed TV was lying in the street at the scene of the train burglary. Drone camera footage showed more boxes and debris left behind after the theft, stretching for blocks, some of it even lying across the train tracks.

"The questions I have is, how would the thieves know that place, that time, that freight car?" Lurigio said.

It's unclear how much the stolen merchandise was worth. Police said some has been recovered.

Union Pacific said the burglaries were not victimless crimes, adding they pose a safety threat to the public, rail workers, and officers.

"They're likely to be repeated if there are not serious consequences – if there's not follow-up on these acts," Lurigio said.