Three Letters on Computer Cord Help Police Arrest Suspects in Eight Burglaries

Photos via Riverside Police Department. Left: Jean Carlos Deleon. Right: Miguel A Gomez. Bottom: Computer cord.

Riverside police stopped two suspicious-looking men at 1:27 a.m. Oct. 7 in an area where garage and car burglaries have recently taken place.

The men were dressed in black with hoodies covering their faces, and they were walking between sidewalks and front yards in the 300 block of Herrick, according to Riverside police.

Jean Carlos Deleon, 21 of the 5200 block of West 25th Street in Cicero, and Miguel A Gomez, 20 of the 5500 block of West 24th Street in Cicero, told police they were on their way home to Cicero from a party in Brookfield, police reported.

They consented to be searched, and the police officer noticed they had a computer cord with initials on it. The officer remembered he had taken a report for a car burglary the previous week in the 500 block of Uvedale Road, in which a computer cord was taken from someone with the same initials that were written on this cord. Sunglasses that matched the description of a stolen item in a separate burglary were also found.

Deleon and Gomez were arrested and taken to the police station. Police believe they had burglarized cars and garages in Riverside for the previous two weeks.

Victims of the burglaries were called to the station to recover their property, including electronics and laptop computers that were found at an electronics store in the 5200 block of West 25th Street, Cicero, police reported.

Police say Deleon and Gomez committed eight burglaries by walking from Cicero to Riverside after 1 a.m., trying car door handles and going into open garages to steal things.

Stolen items included tollway change, sunglasses CDs, tablets, laptops and car equipment, which were pawned.

Gomez was charged with three counts of felony burglary, police reported. Deleon was charged with felony theft. Both have criminal histories that include theft, burglary and resisting police.

Deleon was out on bond for a previous felony retail theft case, and he was wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet on his ankle. The Cook County Sheriff’s electronic monitoring unit was contacted.