The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
Suspect at large after robbery
Police are on the hunt for a 19-year-old Lorain man who is the only assailant in a Sept. 10 home invasion.
Lorain police are on the hunt for a 19-year-old Lorain man who they say is the only assailant still at large after a Sept. 10 home invasion.
Police are searching for Kardel Tranelle Crooks of East 34th Street saying he was the possible mastermind behind the robbery of $350 from a man in an apartment in the 1500 block of Herbert Drive in Lorain.
According to a Lorain police report, around 3:51 p.m. Crooks along with 25-year-old Micah Kelvin Charlton Jr. and 25-yearold Christian Michael Sledge, both of Lorain, entered the victim’s apartment where he was playing Xbox with his daughter.
The victim said his door was unlocked.
When he’d received a call from Crooks earlier in the day asking if he was home, he said it did not raise any red flags as he often works from home and Crooks had been one of his clients, according to the report.
As the men came in, the victim says Sledge pointed what he believed to be a revolver at his head and asked “what do you have?” and began searching the victim’s shorts; which contained the aforementioned cash, the report said.
Sledge told the victim he knew there was more money in the apartment, according to the report.
With the gun to the victim’s head, Sledge said “I don’t want to do this in front of your daughter” and took the victim to a back bedroom demanding to see the safe, the report said.
The victim did not know what was taken from the house as Crooks and Charlton rummaged through his belongings while he was taken to the bedroom.
After convincing the intruders he had no more money, the trio ran from the residence, according to the report.
The victim waited a few moments and then moved to a part of the complex where he could see the suspects.
One opened the hood of a Dodge Ram and, he believed, placed the gun near the engine, the report said.
The victim then called police, according to the report.
Police were dispatched to the scene and several officers chased the latemodel truck through the west side of Lorain, cutting through front yards, violating multiple traffic laws including reaching speeds of up to 90 miles per hour, the report said.
The truck was ditched in the driveway of a house in the 19000 block of Lexington Avenue and the suspects took off on foot, the report said.
Sledge and Charlton were taken into custody in a field on Garden Avenue after a brief foot chase. Crooks is still on the loose, according to the report.
A gun was not found during an initial search of the truck, but officers located two folding pocket knives locked in the open position and the broken remains of three cell phones, the report said.