NEW FUGITIVE LINKS LEAD TO
ANONYMOUS TIPS AND ARRESTS
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Monday, August 15, 2011
—Three days after announcing publicly searchable links are now active on the Cook County Sheriff’s website, anonymous tips are flowing in about the locations of thousands of wanted fugitives, Cook County Sheriff Thomas J. Dart announced Monday.
More than 100 tips were received over the weekend and investigators have been able to verify that about 30 percent appear to be accurate – with about a dozen more so detailed that investigators have been able to make arrests or contact with the fugitive.
Those tips are coming thanks to links at www.cookcountysheriff.com that allow the public to search more than 44,000 fugitive warrants and 1,000 child support warrants – conducting searches either by city, zip code or last name. The fugitive warrants include violent crimes like murder and robbery, but also for violating terms of probation, traffic offenses and other non-violent charges. After searching, residents can anonymously call in tips at 708-865-4902 or email fugitive.warrants@cookcountyil.gov.
Within a matter of hours of Friday news coverage about those searchable links, calls and emails began coming in, providing various details about fugitives. Tips also came in about other unrelated criminal activity and that information was immediately provided to the Cook County Sheriff’s Narcotics Unit and the Special Operations Unit.
Since Friday, tips as a result of residents searching the 45,000 warrants have led to:
- Five arrests
- Four warrants cleared because the person is deceased, allowing investigators to notify judges that the warrant can be cleared and focus efforts on other warrants
- Three people turning themselves in
- Two leads on fugitive locations outside the state and contact with authorities there