From the Chicago Dispatcher, October 2008

The Fugitive Fare
Suburban driver Vincent Bennett describes how a fare in Vernon Hills turned into a frightening ride with a fugitive.

By: Jonathan Bullington

At first the fare seemed like any other for suburban cabdriver Vincent Bennett - a customer in an affluent Vernon Hills neighborhood heading to O'Hare Airport. Little did Bennett know he would soon be involved in an accused criminal's escape from the law.

On the night of Thursday, August 28, Bennett's 303 Taxi was dispatched to a home in the 500 block of East Harvey Lake Circle in Vernon Hills. Bennett, a 12-year veteran driver, sat outside the home for 15 minutes before a tall, skinny black male, possibly in his early 20's, appeared from the home carrying nothing but a shirt in his hands. When he entered Bennett's cab, sitting directly behind the driver, he requested Bennett take him to the Southside of Chicago.

“He said he needed to go to his house on the Southside to get his luggage first to catch a flight at 11 p.m.,” Bennett recalled. “I thought, wow, he's cutting it close,” Bennett added, remembering the time was already 9:30 p.m. when they left.

As the two passed Westfield Hawthorn Mall, Bennett said his passenger ducked his head down on the seat, commenting on how tired he was from a “long day.”

“That's when I knew something was strange,” Bennett said. “I said to him, 'Come on, tell me what's really going on.' He said, 'Get me to the tollway and I'll tell you the whole story.'”

Despite his suspicions, Bennett continued to I-294, thinking his passenger might have been in a fight or something and was hiding from his friends.

“I still didn't think he had any legal problems,” Bennett remembered. “I didn't sense any hostility or anger in his voice.”

Once they reached the tollway, Bennett asked him for his story, not being prepared for what he was about to hear. According to Bennett, his passenger said he and three friends were writing counterfeit checks at J.C. Penny's in Westfield Hawthorn when Vernon Hills Police caught them. His passenger was handcuffed first and placed in the back of a police car. While there, Bennett said the man told him he was able to slip his hands from behind his back to his front, force down the divider, climb into the front seat of the police car and then slip out of the car and off to the nearby subdivision where Bennett picked him up, all without being seen by police on the scene. The man told Bennett he knocked on the door of an elderly couple, who let him in to call for a cab.

“I didn't believe him at first,” Bennett said. “Then he showed me the cuffs. I thought, oh [expletive deleted], I need to take him where he's going.”

Bennett said he thought about notifying police or calling for help, but decided his safety might be in jeopardy if he did so.

“He just escaped out of a police car. I don't know what he's capable of,” Bennett said. “He had a big wad of money, so police didn't search him. He could have had a weapon, for all I knew. What if I was able to reach the computer to send a distress signal? It could have turned into a high-speed chase or a hostage situation.”

Bennett said his passenger seemed excited about his escape, sharing with him details of how he made the counterfeit checks and how he had been doing so for years. At one point, his passenger asked Bennett for his cell phone, which he used to make several calls to friends asking to find handcuff keys and arranging to meet once dropped off, Bennett said.

“I wanted to carry on casual conversation with him,” Bennett said, “so he wouldn't be alarmed. He was watching me the entire ride.”

Eventually, Bennett dropped the man off on the Southside, near West 75th Street. Bennett said his passenger paid him, exited the cab and quickly entered a waiting black SUV, which immediately drove off, but not before Bennett could write down the license plate number.

Feeling he was out of danger, Bennett quickly called Vernon Hills Police to report his situation. He said he asked the dispatcher if he could speak to a supervisor or watch commander, to which he was told there were none available because of a “massive man hunt going on.”

“I said, 'I can end that man hunt right now because the guy you're looking for, I just dropped off on the Southside of Chicago,'” Bennett said. He was shocked by what he said the dispatcher told him.

“The person on the phone said, 'There's no supervisor here because of the man hunt. Call back in 20 to 30 minutes.' I said, 'Are you kidding me? I'll wait on hold. Go get a supervisor.'”

Bennett said a watch commander came on the phone and listened as Bennett told him everything he knew. He said he was then asked to return to Vernon Hills to give a statement to police. While at the Vernon Hills Police Station, he told police his story, gave them the license plate number of the car that picked up his passenger, showed them the phone numbers his passenger had called while in the cab, and even picked the passenger's photo out of those presented by police.

Bennett thought that would be the end of his story, until he saw his story covered in the Chicago Sun-Times. In that story, Vernon Hills Deputy Police Chief Jon Petrillo is reported to have said it would have been helpful if Bennett had contacted police immediately after finding out the man had escaped from police.

“I find the comments by the chief absurd,” Bennett said, “that I should have called immediately. I believe I did the right thing. Seriously, if I would have hit the distress signal and he saw and had a weapon, who knows what would have happened.”

According to Bob Lonergan, public information officer for Vernon Hills Police, the identity of Bennett's passenger is known by police, but no arrest has been made and the investigation is still pending. Lonergan said police still haven't ruled out someone letting the suspect out of the police car while it was unattended.

As for Deputy Chief Petrillo's comments, Lonergan said that, although he cannot speak for Petrillo, he believes those comments were taken out of context.

“A citizens safety is of the utmost importance,” Lonergan said. “If [Bennett] felt his safety was in jeopardy, he did the right thing. We don't want a second incident.”

Lonergan had little to say for Bennett's account of a dispatcher telling him to call back in 20 to 30 minutes, adding only that he didn't know what happened because he wasn't there and the issue was something “we'd have to look into.”

“Our dispatchers do a great job,” Lonergan said.