Illegal Mexican immigrant arrested for threatening to kill passengers on a Greyhound bus
On Sunday, a Chicago man was held in the Lake County jail for hijacking a Greyhound bus which led to a police chase along Interstate 94 from the Racine, Wis. area to Route 173 in northern Lake County. The suspect was reported to be carrying a gun.
The suspect has now been identified as 33-year-old Margarito Vargas-Rosas.
Sergeant Christopher Covelli with the Lake County Sheriff's office has told reporters that Vargas-Rosas has been charged with a felony, making a terrorist threat, a misdemeanor as well as disorderly conduct. According to Covelli, he also faces a fugitive-from-justice charge.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson told Fox News that Vargas-Rosas is an illegal immigrant to the United States and had already been deported five times to Mexico by Border Patrol agents. According to the agents, he also had a DUI arrest on his record.
Sgt. Covelli said that Vargas-Rosas has to appear before the court on Wednesday afternoon to face trial for the charges against him. He was held without a bond in the Lake County jail by order of a bond court hearing on Sunday. He's being held before the authorities extradite him back to Racine County.
Police authorities received a call for a possibly armed suspect on a Greyhound bus on Route I-94 at around 10 p.m. on Friday, according to the Illinois State Police.
Police cars chased the Greyhound bus from Wisconsin up to the exit for Route 173 near Wadsworth, where the pursuit ended.
More than 20 Lake County deputies along with their Tactical Response Team joined the chase after an intimation from the Illinois State Police, according to Sgt. Covelli.
Vargas-Rosas was taken down by the Tactical Response Team, which then intercepted the bus and took him to the sheriff's office in Waukegan. After he was transported, investigators interrogated the suspect in the Racine County Sheriff's office.
Christopher Schmaling, the Racine County Sheriff, said that the suspect “thought it was a training exercise by law enforcement, or thought he was going to stop someone.”
Schmaling added, “I think he ultimately recognized that this was a serious event when we spiked his tires.”
Apparently, he also made threats to the police department as he was being escorted to jail.
Patrick Dodd, who was onboard the bus, told the Chicago Tribune that the suspect threatened the passengers and pulled out a gun from his pants.
Dodd said that Vargas-Rosas did not stop the bus after running through the first spike strip laid down by the authorities.
He said, "He didn't stop after the first spike strip. He went on to Illinois. And then he hit the second spike strip."
According to Dodd, passengers tried to coerce him to stop, but in vain. Dodd was headed to Chicago and had boarded the bus at around 8:45 p.m. near Milwaukee.
Another passenger, Terrance Williams of New Jersey had no idea that the Greyhound was running out of course. He earlier thought that the bus was being escorted by the police, until later when he realized that the police were in a hot pursuit of the long-haul vehicle.
William's said, "The law is you see emergency lights, you pull over." The bus eventually was stopped and all 40 passengers were safely escorted off.
Williams added, "They treated us like we were criminals like we did something wrong. OK, if you got the person you're looking for and everything's done, why are you detaining us?. It was crazy."
Illinois State Police are yet to release further details about the fiasco. Greyhound officials have not responded to the event after multiple attempts to reach them.
The incident brings to the fore President Trump's concerns about border security of the USA against Mexico, as well as the validity of his stance on immigration and the DACA statutes.