Grindr Stick-Up Crew Stung In Rogers Park Covert Op: Cops

CHICAGO, IL — An Evanston resident is among two men accused of setting up meetings with at least a half dozen men using an online dating app before robbing them at gunpoint over the past month in the Rogers Park neighborhood. Stephen Jackson, 25, of the 1500 block of Darrow Avenue, and Trenell Kirkman, 28, of the 11900 block of Washington Avenue, Blue Island, arranged to meet their victims for sex or drugs on Grindr before robbing them at gunpoint, police said.

In nine incidents starting Oct. 14, Jackson and Kirkman would lure their targets onto a gangway in the 7600 block of North Bosworth Avenue, according to police. After learning about the robberies, detectives set up a sting operation. An officer arranged a meeting online and took the two men into custody at the same location around 2:25 p.m. on Nov. 9.

Jackson was charged with three counts of armed robbery and one count each of attempted robbery, unlawful possession of a credit card and possession of a firearm without a license.

Kirkman was charged with four counts of armed robbery, one count of attempted armed robbery and one count of soliciting a sexual act in connection with setting up the meetings through Grindr, which describes itself as the "world’s largest social networking app for gay, bi, curious and queer men."

At their bond hearing, prosecutors said the men would brandish a small silver revolver and demand phones and wallets from their victims once they had been lured over to the gangway, the Chicago Tribune reported. They would demand the passwords to their phones and the PINs to their debit cards.

According to the Tribune, prosecutors said the men were caught on surveillance cameras carrying out at least one robbery and recorded using the debit cards of one of the people who had been robbed.

_{Top photo: Stephen Jackson (left), Trenell Kirkman booking photographs | Chicago PD}