Joliet police operation results in mass arrests on wide range of charges

The Joliet police announced Thursday the arrests of at least 20 individuals as part of a joint effort of local, Will County and federal law enforcement.

At a media conference at the Joliet police station, Joliet Police Chief Bill Evans said the offenders were arrested and charged on “a wide range” of offenses, including weapons and drug charges, felony theft, and felony retail theft.

Evan said the joint effort - called Operation Streetsweeper - involves Joliet police, the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office, U.S. Marshal’s Great Lakes Task Force, the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms with assistance from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office.

“By removing these dangerous individuals from our streets, we are taking significant steps to reduce the risks to our community and restore a sense of security to our neighborhoods,” Evans said. “We will not tolerate senseless violent acts in our city.”

The operation is an ongoing effort, and at least 10 cases are still actively being investigated, he said.

The operation was the result of three weeks’ worth of planning, which culminated in the arrests made Wednesday.

While violent crime has come down by 27% over the past two years, Evans acknowledged that some shootings this summer were “very disturbing to us.”

Some of the shootings are “gang related,” Evans said.

Suspects arrested during Operation Streetsweeper included many repeat offenders, and some individuals suspected of being behind the spate of nonfatal shootings this summer that have resulted in significant property damage, according to Joliet police.

Those arrested include:

• Mason Bailey, 22, charged with two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm. Evans noted that Bailey was a suspect in a February 2023 shooting in the 200 block of Lucos.

• D’Amonta Barber, 25, is suspected of involvement in a July shooting in the 1400 Block of Center Street in Joliet, and is charged with aggravated discharge of a fire arm, possession of a weapon by a felon, possession of cannabis with intent to deliver, and possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

• Ricardo Neri Lopez, 30, is charged with two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm. He was arrested in connection with a May 2024 shooting in the 200 Block of Henderson.

• Mary Beth Mosqueda, 35, is charged with two counts of failure to report a motor vehicle accident resulting in injury or death. The Crest Hill incident she is alleged to have been involved in resulted in the deaths of a 53-year-old woman and a 68-year-old male pedestrian in the 2100 block of Plainfield Road.

• Johnnie Wallace, 31, is charged with three counts of unlawful delivery of cannabis, possession of cannabis with intent to deliver, and possession of a controlled substance.

• Alec Knox, 34, is charged with possession of a controlled substance.

• Elijah Wright, 25, is charged with unlawful delivery of a controlled substance.

• Bryson Barefield, 40, is charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

• Derek Creal, 62, is charged with aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer and possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver.

• Gavin Gaddis, 46, is charged with burglary, two counts felony retail theft, and possession of a controlled substance.

• Rodolfo Paradez, 29, is charged with two counts of felony retail theft and criminal trespass.

• Steven Cheeks, 50, is charged with burglary and felony retail theft.

• Willis Davis, 36, Leon Williams, 71, and Gregory Backstrom, 53, were each charged with one count of felony retail theft.

• Kaprison Holmes, 39, is charged with five counts of felony retail theft.

• Ryan Scott, 38, is charged with possession of methamphetamine.

• Angel Vargas, 23, is charged with aggravated fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer, obstructing justice, fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer, and felony disorderly conduct.

• Tyler Marshall, 23, is charged with aggravated battery of a child. The victim was 4 months old, making the charge a Class X felony.

• Demetrious Houston, Jr, 25, is charged with possession of a weapon by a felon, obstructing a peace officer, and fleeing or attempting to elude a peace officer.

• Donnell Brown, 20, is charged with obstructing a peace officer.

Upon their arrests both Brown and Houston were discovered to be in possession of modified automatic Glock handguns, according to Joliet police, which added additional charges of unlawful use of a weapon machine gun for both men.

“Those automatic Glocks would still be out there on the street if not from the bravery of those Joliet Police officers in this effort,” Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow said. “They weren’t out there chasing them for the Glocks, that was a bonus as a result of this effort. That’s priceless. If that’s the only thing we did in this, God knows how many lives the officers could have saved by taking those machine guns off the street.”

Glasgow stressed that his office and the Joliet police plan to continue efforts like Operation Streetsweeper and push to get warrants acted on faster for wanted suspects.

“The quicker we can serve them [warrants], the safer we’ll all be,” he said.

Repeat offenders and the SAFE-T Act

The operation was focused on looking for repeat offenders. Glasgow referenced the SAFE-T Act as putting “stumbling blocks in our way” in being able to detain those charged with certain violent crimes.

Under the pretrial provision of the SAFE-T Act, a defendant will undergo a detention hearing if prosecutors file a petition to deny their jail release. At the detention hearing, a judge must first determine if the defendant is charged with an offense eligible for detention under the law.

The judge also must determine if the defendant is either a danger to the community or a flight risk, or both. If a defendant is a danger to the community or a flight risk, are there conditions that can mitigate those factors, such as electronic monitoring.

The judge will make a decision on whether someone stays in jail (with no ability to pay their way out) based on information provided to them by the prosecutors and the defense attorneys at the detention hearing.

Only three of the suspects arrested Wednesday are charged with crimes that may be qualified for release under the SAFE-T Act.

Still, Glasgow posited there are changes that he said need to be made to the law in order to “protect the offender’s rights, and especially the victims’ rights,” something he said he plans to pursue with the new Cook County state’s attorney after the November election.

Glasgow used a hypothetical scenario of a person arrested for multiple burglaries after having served time for murder, to argue local judges should be given more discretion under the legislation to determine who should be able to be detained without bail, saying that the hypothetical person would not be able to be detained under the SAFE-T Act if the burglaries were deemed non-violent.

It was not immediately clear during the press conference if that scenario he described was directly referencing one of the arrests made in Operation Streetsweeper.

The Illinois Network for Pretrial Justice issued a statement fact checking the remarks, and accused Glasgow of “fear-mongering” and attempting to mislead the public.

“We are disappointed but unsurprised to see Will County State’s Attorney Jim Glasgow trying to confuse the public about the Pretrial Fairness Act,” the INPJ said in its statement. “From the moment this historic legislation was passed into law, the State’s Attorney has tried to derail and undermine this law aimed at confronting economic and racial injustice. Being untruthful about reforms aimed at addressing mass incarceration makes our communities less safe.

“The State’s Attorney’s remarks were nothing more than a retread of the same tired tactics employed over the last several years,” the statement continued. “While legislators across Illinois were working to make people safer by passing the Pretrial Fairness Act and its trailers, he was fear-mongering and pontificating on Fox News where he wrongly predicted that the Pretrial Fairness Act would lead to ‘jail doors swinging open’ and the ‘end of the days.’”

The organization went on to argue that Glasgow’s proposed amendments, which he said are meant to make the state’s statute more reminiscent of a similar law in New Jersey, would lead to judges arbitrarily detaining people on minor charges.