Crime & Safety

Carjacker Wanted in Death of 11-Year-Old Boy Caught in Wisconsin McDonald's

Police suspect Rockie Douglas is also accused of snatching purses in Oak Lawn and Burbank before he fled the state.

Rockie Douglas, wanted in connection with carjackings and a crash that killed an 11-year-old boy on the South Side, was captured Tuesday at the drive-thru window of a Milwaukee McDonald's, according to the U.S. Marshal's Office.

Douglas was in a stolen car in the drive-thru area when authorities boxed him, and he was arrested without incident.
“He was at the window,” U.S. Marshal Supervisor Douglas Bachert told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Douglas had a woman in the car with him when authorities found him, according to the Sun Times media report. Further details about the woman were not immediately available Tuesday.

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Douglas, 34, last known to be of the Beach Park neighborhood of Chicago, is suspected of driving away in a van he allegedly carjacked on the city’s North Side after hitting the vehicle carrying 11-year-old Donovan Turnage. Donovan was on his way to get his Christmas haircut with his father and 20-year-old brother on Saturday morning.

The boy died after he was ejected from his family’s Chevy Suburban at 55th Street and Halsted Avenue. His father was also seriously injured.

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Chicago Police were in pursuit when Douglas allegedly hijacked a second vehicle, possibly a 2008 tan and white Toyota FJ Cruiser, that led Oak Lawn Police on a brief chase into Burbank after the driver snatched a woman’s purse around 1:30 p.m. Saturday, reports said.

Oak Lawn police officers found a shaken 52-year-old woman when they arrived at Jewel-Osco at 8801 S. Ridgeland Ave. The woman told police she was walking back to her car when a male white driving a tan sports utility vehicle waved at her across the lane of traffic.

Police said as the woman was walking through the handicapped parking area, the same SUV pulled alongside of her on the right side. The driver pulled the woman's purse off and into the SUV, he then fled going westbound through the parking lot, reports said.

Another man who was in the parking lot and saw the robbery, told police that the SUV pulled up alongside the woman. The driver reached through his window and grabbed her purse, reports said. The man ran toward the SUV and punched the window trying to get the driver to stop.

The SUV peeled out of the lot and was last seen turning southbound on to Ridgeland Avenue. The man was able to provide police with the Illinois plate number. 

He described the driver as a male white, wearing a beige hooded sweatshirt over his head and a black scarf pulled up to his eyes so that it covered his face. The witness used the woman’s cell phone to call 911.

A Salvation Army bell ringer standing inside the south entrance to Jewel also told police he heard a scream and saw a tan SUV tearing westbound through the parking lot. Surveillance video later provided by the store’s management confirmed the victim’s and witnesses’ sequence of events.

Police said the woman at Jewel was not injured and refused medical attention. The driver got away with the woman’s credit cards and ID, and $400 in cash.

The tan SUV was spotted heading westbound on 87th Street. Patch readers reported on Saturday seeing the vehicle driving at a high rate of speed on the wrong side of the road. The driver was laying on the horn to move other traffic out of the way, while being pursued by several Oak Lawn squad cars.

Oak Lawn Police pursued the SUV into Burbank, and then called off the chase.

Minutes later, a man driving a similar vehicle pulled up next to a woman pumping gas at the Speedway at 7859 S. Harlem Ave. in Burbank. The driver got out of the stolen SUV and opened the passenger door, where the woman’s purse was laying on the front seat, the Burbank Beat reports.

A struggle ensured, but Burbank Police said that the man was able to grab the woman’s purse and re-enter the SUV. Burbank Police acknowledged that they believe the driver to be the suspect in vehicular hijackings which occurred earlier in the day, including the fatal accident involving the 11-year-old boy.

Shortly before 2 p.m., Alsip Police radioed Oak Lawn of a reckless driver in a tan SUV traveling northbound on Cicero Avenue at a high rate of speed. Oak Lawn police were able to connect the SUV to the purse snatching and the Chicago incidents.

The second vehicle said to be hijacked by Douglas in Chicago was found on the Interstate 294 ramp to I-88, the Chicago Tribune reports. A motorist stopped to help him, when Douglas took that driver's 2007 light blue Honda Accord, with the license plate X14477. The Honda is believed to be the car he was driving when caught at the McDonald’s on Tuesday.


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