Three months ago Monday, Willie Lloyd left prison in a mink coat and a limousine, the prodigal boss of one of the Midwest’s largest and most violent gangs.
He will mark the occasion in jail.
Lloyd, the self-proclaimed leader of the Unknown Vice Lords, has never lacked flamboyance. And his brief flirt with freedom has ended, at least for the time being, with a particularly dramatic flourish.
Sunday night, Lloyd was charged with armed robbery for allegedly taking as ransom a Mercedes-Benz that belonged to a trusted lieutenant whose brother reportedly was kidnapped Friday, according to Lt. Philip Cline, of the Chicago Police gang investigations department.
The lieutenant and two others are believed to have tried to assassinate Lloyd on the Eisenhower Expressway Saturday afternoon, Cline said. They sprayed bullets at the right car, but Lloyd wasn’t in it.
It all came to an end as Lloyd, reportedly on his way to seek revenge, was captured by police as he made a grand exit from the Marriott Hotel in Deerfield from where, unbeknownst to anyone at the luxury hotel, he allegedly had been running the gang for the past five weeks, according to Cmdr. Robert Dart of gang investigations.
Dart and others have called Lloyd a latter-day Al Capone more than once, and the weekend’s events are more than worthy of a 1930s-style gangster movie.
It started, at least to the public eye, about noon Saturday, when three men in a van slid open the side door and began firing on a white Caprice Classic as the two vehicles headed east on the Eisenhower in west suburban Hillside, just east of the Wolf Road exit, according to Illinois State Police Sgt. David Scott with the Harlem District.
That car made a U-turn and began driving west in the eastbound lanes, with the van in hot pursuit, leaving terrified motorists scattering like dice in their wake.
After the Caprice hit another car and crashed into a guardrail, at least one of the men jumped out of the van and continued firing into the driver’s window.
The car’s driver, a 33-year-old man who police believe is Lloyd’s chauffeur, was shot several times in the thigh. He was reported in serious condition Sunday at Loyola University Medical Center.
A woman passenger, identified by police as the sister of Lloyd’s girlfriend, and Lloyd’s 18-month-old son, were hit by flying glass but were not seriously injured.
A Hillside police officer following a funeral procession on Wolf Road saw the van on the expressway and chased it. Other police joined in and they arrested three men as they tried to run away from the van in the 2200 block of South 15th Avenue in Broadview.
Sunday night, those men remained in police custody, and charges were expected to be filed against them by Monday morning, Scott said.
Police recovered a Tech-9 semiautomatic pistol and a modified M-16 rifle from the van, said Andy Knott, spokesman for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
What sparked the alleged assassination attempt, the gang crime officers say, was Lloyd’s increasingly heavy-handed attempts to maintain control of the gang.
On Friday, the 25-year-old brother of one of Lloyd’s lieutenants was kidnapped, allegedly because Lloyd was angry that the lieutenant hadn’t been paying street taxes, the dues Lloyd charged members for selling drugs, Cline said.
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The lieutenant’s brother was held in a building in the 1800 block of South Central Avenue, according to Cline. When the lieutenant went to get his brother released, the lieutenant also was held until he turned over his 1985 Mercedes Benz as ransom, Cline said.
They were freed just after midnight Friday, Cline said, and allegedly retaliated with the expressway shooting hours later.
Lloyd reportedly was on his way to return the favor Saturday night when Deerfield police arrested him and 16 others in an entourage of three cars and a van, Cline said. Five semi-automatic pistols and a Mac II machine pistol were found in the vehicles, police said.
Lloyd was charged with aggravated unlawful restraint and armed robbery in connection with the alleged kidnapping, Cline said. He was being held Sunday night at the Central District.
Also charged with aggravated unlawful restraint and armed robbery were Kardell Trent, 27, of 3512 W. 12th Place; Prince Muhammed, 41, 3751 N. Halsted St.; Ernest Daniels, 32, 916 S. 23rd St., Bellwood; Corey Johnson, 19, 4303 W. Cortez St. and George Gatlin, 34, 2150 N. Lincoln Park West.
James Jenkins, 23, of 2650 W. Ogden Ave., was charged with two counts of felony possession of a firearm. Each was charged with one count of unlawful use of a weapon were Johnny Van, 23, of 3217 W. Washington Blvd.; Mark Duncan, also known as Michael Price, 17, of 645 N. Drake St.; Marcus Wright, 17, of 1213 S. Harding St.; and a 16-year-old juvenile whose name police declined to release.
Lloyd and the others are scheduled to appear in Violence Court on Monday, and police say they expect to file additional charges against them.
Lloyd’s grip on power began to slip quickly after his Dec. 29 release from Logan Correctional Center, where he served half of a 7-year sentence for two weapons convictions. He previously was convicted of killing an Iowa police officer in the 1970s.
Five limousines and a dozen attendants resplendent in gold and furs met Lloyd at the prison’s gate and escorted him home to Chicago.
“When he was in prison, he was bigger than life,” Dart said. “Now, he’s an ordinary mortal.”
Less than two weeks after his release, police crashed a homecoming party for Lloyd at an Austin nightclub. On Jan. 29, they raided his two-flat on the West Side, arresting three of his bodyguards on drug and weapons charges.
It was soon after, according to Dart, that Lloyd headed to the Marriott in Deerfield with a small circle of trusted advisers and friends, fearing that his home had been bugged. He lived inconspicuously. Only Lloyd’s entourage and police knew who he was, Dart said.
This latest round of charges, according to police, would probably have little impact on Lloyd’s rule. But the alleged assassination attempt will, they say.
“Optimistically, I’d like to say (we could put him away for) a year,” Dart said. “But even if he goes back on the street, he’s not the same Willie Lloyd. Things haven’t gone his way.”