A Naperville 14-year-old was found to be carrying a loaded, semiautomic pistol when stopped by police during a “teen takeover” event Saturday night in downtown Naperville, officials said.
Police said the teen was allegedly “displaying suspicious behavior” about 7:30 p.m. in the area of Washington Street and Jefferson Avenue, prompting an officer to do a safety pat down during which he found a 9mm semiautomatic handgun in the boy’s waistband, a news release said.
The juvenile was charged with one count of unlawful possession of a weapon, a class 4 felony, according to the joint release from the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office and the Naperville Police Department.
At a court hearing Monday, DuPage County Circuit Judge Chantelle Porter ordered the teen be fitted with an electronic monitoring device and released on home detention pending the outcome of the case. His next court hearing is scheduled for June 27.
“The allegation that a 14-year-old boy was in possession of a loaded, semi-automatic handgun during an extremely crowded event in downtown Naperville is extremely disturbing,” State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said in a statement on the arrest.
“Once again, the Naperville Police Department’s vigilant policing and heads up work led to the removal of an allegedly illegally possessed handgun from our streets and possibly prevented a future tragedy.”
Naperville Police Chief Jason Arres also called the incident “disturbing.”
“Residents and visitors to Naperville should expect to continue seeing a large police presence in our downtown, at special events and anywhere large groups are congregating,” he said. “We take our responsibility to keep this community safe very seriously and will have zero tolerance for criminal, disruptive or unsafe behavior that puts others at risk.”
While the news release did not go into detail about the “takeover” Saturday or if other arrests were made, it was the third such incident known to have occurred in the last month.
The first two were over the May 17-18 weekend, when large groups of teens collected downtown and led to numerous citations being issued and two arrests made. The second of the two nights of takeovers centered around a parking lot at which vehicles did burnouts and doughnuts and fireworks were set off while crowds watched, police said.
There were similar incidents in 2023, including one in which police had to be dispatched downtown to break up a group of about 150.
