Wanted Man Arrested After Brief Stand-Off: Sheriff's Office

WAUKEGAN, IL — A man wanted on two Lake County warrants was arrested Friday following a brief stand-off with sheriff's deputies, police and a pair of dogs, authorities said.

Cory Cooper, 22, faces felony robbery and theft charges stemming with a pair of December 2019 incidents, according to the Lake County sheriff's and clerk's offices.

The sheriff's office's warrants team learned Cooper, a former Oak Park resident, had recently been living in the home of a family member in Waukegan, according to Sgt. Chris Covelli. Around 9 a.m., members of the team staking out the duplex spotted Cooper briefly step outside.

When deputies walked up to the house, Cooper began to try to flee through a bathroom window, but he retreated when he said Waukegan police and additional deputies behind the home, according to Covelli.

As deputies went inside, Cooper fled his side of the house and entered a second-story foyer leading to the other apartment in the subdivided single-family home. Covelli said he then proceeded to hide under some blankets.

Once the sheriff's office's dogs, Dax and Duke, arrived and began to bark at him, Cooper gave up attempting to hide and surrendered, according to the spokesperson for the sheriff's office.

In the first of his two pending criminal cases in the county, Cooper is accused of stealing a pair of shoes from a minor on Dec. 12, 2019, in Waukegan, according to the sheriff's office.

The second warrant was issued in February in connection with a Dec. 19, 2019, robbery in Mundelein. No further information about the charge was immediately available from Mundelein police.

Cooper also picked up a new charge of resisting arrest in connection with Friday morning's ordeal and held at Lake County Jail ahead of an initial court hearing. Prior to the new charge, Cooper would have had to post $11,000 in cash to secure his pretrial release.

Court records show Cooper pleaded guilty in April 2019 to a charge of pointing a gun at a police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin two years earlier. And in September 2019 he pleaded guilty to felony shoplifting in McHenry County. Covelli said the second conviction aggravated the latest theft charge to a felony.