Photo Courtesy of Chicago Tribune
Two reputed gang members were arrested and appeared in court on drug charges over the weekend after Chicago Fire Department crews responded to 74 heroin overdose cases in 72 hours last week.
Chicago police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration were combing the West Side trying to find the source of the dangerous batch of drugs.
Alfonzo Sylvester, 24, was arrested Saturday and appeared in Leighton Criminal Court Building on Sunday on charges of possession of heroin with the intent to deliver and aggravated fleeing and eluding police, both felonies, prosecutors said.
Sylvester, wearing a denim jacket with red lettering that read “Rolling Bones,” stood silent as Cook County Judge James Brown set his bond at $30,000.
Mario Wooford, 26, was arrested Friday on a possession with intent charge after he and Sylvester are alleged to have sold an undercover Chicago police officer $720 worth of heroin on the West Side, prosecutors said. On Saturday, Cook County Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil set Wooford’s bail at $10,000 on the drug charge, taking into account that he has no history of violent crimes.
The men are members of the Unknown Vice Lords street gang, according to court records. They were arrested after Chicago recorded 74 overdose cases in 72 hours by Friday afternoon – more than double the number in the same three-day period last year.
Chicago police have said the dangerous batches of narcotics might be heroin laced with the powerful painkiller fentanyl.
The drugs were bought primarily on the West Side, police said. A sample of heroin recovered by police may have contained fentanyl, authorities said.
Police were also investigating at least one death to see whether it was connected to the overdose outbreak.
Wooford was arrested Friday in the 3900 block of West Congress Parkway after he and Sylvester were accused of delivering an estimated 4.8 grams of heroin – with an estimated street value of $720 – to an undercover officer, court records show. The transaction occurred within 1,000 feet of Garfield Park, at Congress and Independence Boulevard.
During the undercover buy, police recovered two knotted plastic bags with a number of blue zip-lock plastic bags containing a white powdery substance – believed to be heroin, according to court records.
Prosecutors said Sylvester managed to flee to his 1999 Buick Regal and then led police on a chase through several intersections en route to the Eisenhower Expressway. Despite police attempts to stop his car, Sylvester drove onto the expressway’s shoulder and escaped authorities.
On Saturday, a Chicago police sergeant spotted Sylvester walking near the intersection of 47th Street and Martin Luther King Drive, according to court documents. After a brief chase, the officer arrested Sylvester with more than $1,000 in cash. Sylvester later admitted to selling drugs to the undercover officer, prosecutors said.
Sylvester, a graduate of Bolingbrook High School and a former Eastern Illinois University student, was being supervised for a prior DUI, according to prosecutors. He had also been convicted of three prior felonies, including a 2011 conviction for resisting arrest in Coles County.