Arrests made after large police response in Crest Hill near Siegel’s Farm

Will County sheriff’s deputies had guns drawn and shields up as they searched abandoned properties near Siegel’s Cottonwood Farm in Crest Hill and arrested two men on burglary charges.

On Monday, Manuel Gonzalez-Martinez, 24, and Jose Rangel, 44, both of Joliet, were apprehended on burglary charges after deputies searched an abandoned brick building and residence off Weber Road, just north of Siegel’s Cottonwood Farm.

Sheriff’s deputies and Crest Hill police had responded to the scene midday Monday. Southbound traffic on Weber Road was closed but northbound traffic was allowed to continue moving.

Deputies were gathered outside a brick building at 17104 Weber Road that is in Lockport Township.

At one point, one of the deputies announced, “Put your hands behind above your head” to whoever was inside the building.

Deputies first responded to the incident about noon on Monday for a report of a “suspicious garage door open of an unoccupied abandoned building that had recently been burglarized,” according to a statement from Will County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Kathy Hoffmeyer.

Deputies saw a broken window that had been boarded up, Hoffmeyer said. One deputy heard “rustling in the nearby foliage” and saw a man “take off running while yelling in Spanish toward the building,” she said.

Hoffmeyer said it was as if the man was warning another person at the scene.

The man was wearing a “multicolored face mask” and he held an “object/tool in his hand,” Hoffmeyer said.

“As the deputy pursued him, [the man] ran south into brush areas where the deputy lost sight of him a few times,” Hoffmeyer said.

More deputies arrived on scene to “set up a wide perimeter” and pursue the man as well, Hoffmeyer said. The face mask was recovered by police and the man was seen near a pond, then west of the brick building and was caught “near a gravel pile on the property,” she said.

The man was Gonzalez-Martinez and he was found with “two burglary tools and ammunition in his pockets,” Hoffmeyer said.

Since deputies suspected a second person was involved in the incident, they entered the brick building but found no one inside, Hoffmeyer said. The deputies then searched an abandoned home on an adjoining property and found no one inside, she said.

After a property owner notified deputies regarding an access point that was “difficult to locate,” deputies conducted another search and found Rangel, Hoffmeyer said.

While conducting a perimeter walk of the property, deputies discovered a moped, a bucket filled with pieces of cut copper and a keyring with several keys that did not belong to the property owner, Hoffmeyer said.

“Deputies also located a large collection of copper piping in the grass and a large garbage can filled with cut copper piping,” Hoffmeyer said.