A Las Vegas judge lowered bail on Monday for a 16-year-old accused of beating and sexually assaulting his teacher.

Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying a man and woman in connection to a southwest Las Vegas Valley robbery.

“11 Minutes,” its title referring to how long the shooting lasted, is intended to be more than a horrific revisitation of a horrific tragedy: its focus is on presenting an intensely personal chronicle of strangers helping strangers.

A man was fatally shot by police Monday morning near a busy west Henderson intersection.

Chicago police

Chicago police have released surveillance photos of a man and a woman wanted for beating and robbing a man on a Red Line train near the 95th Street station early Sunday.

The two walked up to the man as he was riding the train at 15 W. 95th St. around 2:40 a.m., according to a police alert. They rifled through his pockets and hit him in the head with a bottle.

The man is described as Black, 25 to 30 years old, 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-9 and dressed in a multi-colored shirt and black pants with a gray stripe on the legs.

The woman is described as Black, 25 to 30 years old, 5-foot-3 to 5-foot-9 and dressed in a white jacket with a multi-colored hood and ripped black jeans.

Eric Lewis, 63, a community activist, walked into the 95th Street Red Line station about 5 a.m. Monday saddened to hear that another violent robbery had occurred on a CTA train.

The now-retired U.S. Marine veteran had been patrolling the Red Line station earlier this year but had stopped when CTA announced it was planning to increase its security presence.

“We are starting to patrol the entire Red Line train because it is getting out of hand,” Lewis said. “This is no Guardian Angels stuff, this isn’t fake, we are doing serious business here to try our best to keep people safe.”

Lewis is the leader of what he calls “The Untouchables,” about half a dozen seniors who have again started patrolling the Red Line every day from 5 to 9 a.m. They do so by riding a train from the 95th Street station on the South Side to the Howard station on the North Side.

The youngest person in the group is 62 and the oldest is 68.

He hopes their presence can act as a deterrent for would-be robberies happening on trains. Still, their loved ones often worry about them getting hurt.  

“You know our wives, kids or grandkids tell us not to do it and worry about something happening to us, but we are already prepared for what may come,” Lewis said. “We’re not scared, we don’t want to get hurt, but we do want to defend passengers no matter what.”

Lewis regrets not being there at the time of Sunday’s robbery but also said most of the violence happening on the trains can happen in the early morning hours — before The Untouchables even enter the turnstile.

“There should be a coordinated effort to make sure there is security or someone on every train that leaves 95th Street station to make sure someone from CTA or CPD are present and available to help someone in need,” Lewis said. “Even if it’s just for the overnight schedule since that is when most of the crime is happening.”

Anthony Vazquez | Sun-Times

A man was shot by police Monday after he climbed a fire escape to enter a Chicago police facility in North Lawndale, grabbed guns he found on a table and aimed them at officers, officials said.

Officers were in the middle of training — using guns loaded with non-lethal rounds — on the fifth floor of the Homan Square facility at 1011 S. Homan Ave. when the man entered through a door propped open for ventilation, Police Supt. David Brown told reporters.

He picked up at least two guns from a table, aimed them at officers and was shot as cops in the building scrambled to respond, Brown said. The suspect, a 47-year-old Waukegan man with a lengthy arrest history of auto theft, was expected to survive.

Before the shooting, surveillance video shows the man walk to a security guard shack around 11:30 a.m. and ask where he could retrieve property from inside the building, Brown said.

The guard directed him to the public entrance on the other side of the building. Instead of going there, he walked west and pulled down an exterior fire escape stairwell and climbed up five floors, Brown said.

“We believe that this offender then sees this pretty open training area where there are guns on a table that’s being utilized in the training at various points,” Brown said.

More than two dozen officers were using guns in the training that were modified to use non-lethal pellets instead of bullets. “Live rounds are not in the guns at the time this person retrieves the guns on the table,” Brown said.

When pressed, however, Brown would not clearly say whether the guns picked up by the man had live rounds or dummy rounds.

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Officers saw the man grab at least two guns, Brown said. Since the officers were not using live ammunition, they immediately notified others in the building who were armed, he said. “The person, the offender, points those guns at the officers and is fired upon and struck by one of the officers,” Brown said.

The man was taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition, police said. Brown said the injuries weren’t thought to be life-threatening.

An officer suffered a sprained ankle and was taken to Mount Sinai Medical Center for treatment, authorities said.

Brown said there was video of the man entering the exterior of the building but not of the shooting inside.

The investigation has been turned over to the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which reported its investigators had responded to the shooting scene. A spokeswoman for the oversight agency declined to comment.

Of the 26 people participating in the training, Brown said most of them were members of tactical response teams but three worked on the mayor’s detail.

Brown described the initial confusion of a stranger entering the training.

“Obviously, someone coming in from a stairwell outside startled everyone. Who is this person? Is this person associated with training? Et cetera. We do have live actors who come sometimes in plainclothes,” Brown said.

“First, (they asked) is this person part of the training? They almost immediately determined he wasn’t. Then notifications were made to officers in other parts of the building that immediately responded,” Brown said.

Brown couldn’t say if the man said anything before he was shot, or if he actually had come to the building to retrieve items from the building’s Evidence and Recovered Property Section.

Asked about the security of the Homan Square building, and how a man managed to break inside through an open door, Brown had little to say. “All of that will be obviously something that will be reviewed by COPA during a full and complete investigation,” he said.

After the shooting, officers cordoned off streets and directed traffic around the Homan Square facility, a former Sears, Roebuck & Co. warehouse. A police spokeswoman urged members of the media not to photograph officers around the facility because they may be working undercover or doing other sensitive work.

The Homan Square compound houses the police department’s Evidence and Recovered Property Section and also serves as a hub for undercover operations and the counterterrorism bureau.

The facility earned a shadowy reputation after the Guardian published a series of stories in 2015 likening it to a CIA “black site” where suspects have allegedly been “disappeared” and subjected to off-the-books questioning and abuse.

The department pushed back on the Guardian’s claims at the time, saying it “abides by all laws, rules and guidelines pertaining to any interviews of suspects or witnesses, at Homan Square or any other CPD facility.”

Still, the department has faced a series of lawsuits over alleged abuse at the facility, and activists have demanded it closed.

Sun-Times file

Brazen, devastating acts of bloodshed earned respect in the world of the Wicked Town street gang, a federal jury heard Monday. 

And in that world, Donald “Lil’ Don” Lee quickly rose within the ranks. He allegedly killed three people in three years, and he soon became the leader of the West Side gang — its “shot caller,” a prosecutor said. 

“Wicked Town’s specialty was violence,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jimmy Arce declared.

Now, Lee faces racketeering conspiracy charges in a trial that kicked off in earnest Monday and is expected to last several weeks at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. It is also expected to give jurors a front-row seat to the mayhem Wicked Town allegedly caused.

Also on trial is Torance “Blackie” Benson, a man labeled as a Wicked Town “shooter.” 

An indictment last year connected the Wicked Town street gang, a faction of the Traveling Vice Lords, to 19 murders over 20 years. It tied Lee to seven of those murders and Benson to two. 

Jurors got a preview during opening statements Monday of what’s in store for them as the trial moves forward. They heard about daylight killings that turned communities into war zones. They saw photos of cars full of bullet holes and blood. They were also warned that some of Wicked Town’s violence was caught on camera — and they would have to watch. 

“You’re going to see someone get shot in the chest at point-blank range,” Arce told them.

The prosecutor said several members of the gang would take the stand and testify about its operations around the 500 block of North Leamington Avenue. The gang members expected to testify were indicted last year along with Lee and Benson but have since pleaded guilty.

Arce acknowledged that “many of them are killers.” But Lee’s defense attorney, Lisa Wood, went further. Wood called them “serial killers.” She said one killed at least five people and once took a victim’s dog as a souvenir. 

“He is a psychopath,” Wood said.

Benson’s defense attorney, Steven Shobat, also urged jurors to question the testimony they’re expected to hear.

The Wicked Town conspiracy allegedly spanned two decades, from July 2000 to August 2020. It would have overlapped with the conspiracies in two other federal trials involving murderous Chicago street gangs — the Four Corner Hustlers and the Hobos “super gang.”

Arce told jurors that three rules governed the Wicked Town street gang: Never lose or sell a Wicked Town gun, never talk to law enforcement, and use violence.

Lee, 40, is accused in the July 2000 murder of a man named Lamont Ware and the December 2002 murder of a man named Ernest Moore. But Arce said it was Lee’s alleged June 2003 murder of a rival gang chief, John Johnson, that catapulted him to the top of the gang.

Wood insisted that Lee shot Johnson in a “classic case of self-defense,” and that the others were also justified shootings. 

But another “explosion of violence” came later, Arce said. Lee is also tied in the indictment to the murders of Charlie Weathers in May 2015, Malcolm Willie in July 2015, James Douthard in August 2015 and Kishaun Mobley in December 2017. 

The indictment accuses Benson, 30, in the December 2014 murder of Ron Hernandez and the January 2016 murder of Martel Howard. 

Arce said the conspiracy led to so many acts of violence that “I can’t possibly walk you through every single one of them.” But he also mentioned the gruesome, execution-style murders of Donald Holmes Jr. and Diane Taylor on Jan. 31, 2018. 

Holmes had at one point been a source for the FBI, court records show.

Prosecutors have said Deshawn “Tiny” Morgan hired Darius “Skudder” Murphy and Demond “Loonie” Brown to kill the pair in exchange for $5,000 and an assault rifle. Holmes and Taylor were then killed inside Holmes’ 2017 Jeep Cherokee in the 4700 block of Arthington Street. 

Murphy was later caught on tape bragging about the killing. 

“I get in the back seat,” Murphy allegedly said. “Shoot that b---- in the back of his sh—. Pow pow!” 

Then, he allegedly added, “His b---- tried to bail out. I grabbed her by the back of her wig. I said ‘Where you going?’ Pow pow! I hit her in her sh— two times. Then I turn, hit him in his sh— two more times. Pow pow!”

Morgan, Murphy and Brown have all admitted to their roles in the murders. 

ATF agents asked Lee about the murders after his arrest on federal firearms charges in June 2020, records show. On Monday, Arce told jurors how Lee answered when he was asked whether Holmes deserved what happened to him. 

“Yes. You know why? Because Don Don signed up on the dotted line,” Lee allegedly said. “These streets ain’t giving pardons in the street. He ratted. So yes, sir. I do believe that.”