No one knows children better than their own mother — and no kid can keep anything truly hidden from their mum.
This rings true for a Chicago mother who happened to see her own child on the news in a report about an armed robbery of a train conductor in Chicago.
The Metra Police Department released images of the suspect after he was caught on camera following the theft.
After recognizing her son, the mother turned Zion Brown in for the Chicago train robbery.
The robbery occurred on Tuesday, February 15 and by that night Brown’s mum had turned her son in.
Brown, an economics major at Loyola University, was reportedly taking the train to class when he realized that he was a little peckish and wanted a small snack before class started.
At 2:07 p.m. last Tuesday, as the train pulled into the Van Buren Street Station in downtown Chicago, Brown spotted the conductor handling a stack of money and decided to take action against him.
Brown allegedly held the train conductor at gunpoint with a black, semi-automatic handgun and announced that he was performing a robbery aboard the Metra Electric Line train, stealing $110.
At a court hearing, it was claimed that this was a crime of opportunity and that when Brown noticed the conductor handling the money, he got pangs of hunger and decided to take the $110 — making off with the money but throwing the weapon away in a nearby trash can.
Mom of Chicago train robbery suspect recognizes him, drags him to police station: Reports pic.twitter.com/HMsJtgoqcH
— Santiago Reyes (@reyessantiago38) February 20, 2022
In the images that were taken after the incident occurred, you can see Brown leaving the scene with the handgun in tow — leaving the conductor behind him at the entrance of the train car with his hands raised above his head looking away.
He remained on the run all day, going about his usual business until he was at home and his mother recognized him through news coverage and drove him to the Calumet City police department to surrender.
A judge has not gone easy on Brown
During a court hearing to decide Brown’s bond and whether or not he would get one, his defense attorney told Judge Maryam Ahmad that the teen committed the crime because he was hungry and needed to eat before class.
However, this excuse didn’t work on the judge, who jokes that she was once a hungry student but had never resorted to violence in order to finance a snack, CWB Chicago reported.
As such, Brown’s request for bail was denied.
According to Brown’s LinkedIn page, he was an undergraduate student at Loyola University and would be studying economics — set to graduate in 2025.
However, it’s unclear whether he’ll remain in good standing with the school after a situation like this.
During an interview with the police, Brown revealed that the gun that he had used to perform the robbery had actually been a BB gun.
The train conductor was unharmed in the robbery, and Brown has no prior criminal record.