Friday, January 6, 2012

It All Started When A Cop Walked Onto A Plane...

An early contender for weirdest crime story of the year, and there's a lot of hinky stuff going on in it.  Very disturbing on many levels.  We bet there are a lot of agencies doing some deep investigating, because, frankly, the only ones who come out of this one looking good are the 23rd District beat cops:
  • Sometime last week, a Chicago police officer took a flight into O'Hare.  He placed his gun into his checked luggage rather than carry it onto the plane.  When he got his luggage back, the gun was gone and he reported it missing.
  • Wednesday evening, patrol officers working near the Sunnyside Mall (1200 block of Sunnyside) saw a man acting suspiciously.  They searched him and found a gun on him.  They also found him wearing thin blue surgical gloves.
  • When they ran the serial number of the gun, it was the one that had been removed from the luggage of the officer who flew into O'Hare.
  • Can you guess the profession of the man they found with the stolen gun?  Well, he just happens to be a baggage handler at O'Hare!
  • Weirdly, he lives in Logan Square.
  • Even more weirdly, he has a completely clean criminal record.
So what's the deal with Abdoulaye Barry?  Why was he in Uptown?  Is he a gangbanger?  Was he trying to sell the gun to gangbangers?  Is he such an innocent that he screwed up so badly that the cops were able to see immediately that there was a problem?

Good job to our beat cops for seeing that something didn't add up and retrieving the weapon, preventing it from getting into the wrong hands.  We imagine TSA, O'Hare security, the unnamed airline for which he works (or worked), and the Gang Unit are all asking him a lot of difficult questions right now.

You can read the story in the Tribune here.

7 comments:

  1. Wow thats bad.
    Is that okay to check your gun into luggage like that?
    I guess just for cops/lawenforcement/fbi/cia.

    Talk about abusing your job!
    That guy definitely got himself fired and into jail.

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  2. Blue surgical gloves?
    That makes him sound like a hit man or possibly a trigger man for a gang, thats so weird.

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  3. Wow, crazy story, thanks for sharing! My question is what business does a cop (or anyone) have bringing a handgun across state lines? Shouldn't work-related weapons stay in the workplace?

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  4. I think cops are usually armed, on- and off-duty, and the guy who brought it on the plane was just doing what he was supposed to. The guy who has the seat next to me at Wrigley Field is CPD and he's always armed. I always laugh how the Cubs security takes my can of bug spray away from me, but he sits there with his gun.

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  5. Law enforcement officers are often required to carry a firearm when they are off duty. And they are legal to travel (fly) with them on their person.

    Anyone can transport a firearm in a checked bag, but they have to be in a locked case, unloaded and a "Fire Arms Unloaded" tag affixed to the case. This is verified by an agent for the airline before it is loaded on the plane.

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  6. THE ISSUE is this loser knew there was a market for a stolen handgun in the 1200 block of West Magnolia... geesh...Really people? Your issue is that a cop checked a gun, as he/she is supposed to do?

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  7. I believe the proper way to transport a legal weapon is in checked baggage, and a cop is never without his gun, which is very legal. So the cop acted rightly in putting his gun in his checked baggage.

    However, I'd ask TSA and other airport personnel a lot of piercing questions. I've heard of too much theft of valuable and sensitive items from checked baggage on flights. I believe that baggage handlers and other airport and TSA personnel are not properly screened and supervised, and are often major security risks themselves. TSA should be audited and so should O'Hare.

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