(Above) Chicago Harbor Lock as it appears to boats approaching from the Chicago River. (Click on image to view larger version.)

14-Mar-16 – A man who used his car to break through the main security gate at Chicago Harbor Lock near Navy Pier early Sunday morning has been arrested and charged with property damage and trespass.

Chicago police say Jaime Santillan, Jr. (left), age 23, who lives in the 6400 block of South Kilpatrick Avenue near Chicago Midway International Airport, drove through the closed security gate at about 5 a.m. on Sunday.

After driving through the gate, police say he got out of the vehicle but was instructed over a loudspeaker to get back in. He was taken into custody and charged with one felony count of criminal damage to property and one misdemeanor count of criminal trespass. He will be in bond court on Monday.

Incident reminiscent of attempted break-in last July

Just last Wednesday, the retiring lockmaster at Chicago Harbor Lock recalled an incident last July in which a man from the south side of Chicago arrived at the facility by tour boat and tried to break into the control room.

Robert Ojala says the man jumped off the Anita Dee II, got into the building, and pounded on a door leading to the control room. The door had a keypad lock, says Ojala, “otherwise, he would have been up there.”

Security personnel from the Anita Dee II chased the man out a back door, tackled and handcuffed him, and held him for police.

The arresting officer in that incident, according to Ojala, first downplayed its significance, calling the trespasser “just a stupid south side white kid” who was looking for a bathroom.

To which Ojala responds, “How many bathrooms do they have on the Anita Dee?”

Charges against the man were dropped when the attorney for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, operator of Chicago Harbor Lock, did not appear for a hearing but that was due to an email that was sent to the attorney erroneously claiming the hearing date had been changed. Ojala suspects the email was intentionally sent by the attorney of the man charged.

“When we came in the next day and said no, here’s the official paperwork, the judge got really upset and reinstated the charges and made him come back to court.”

Ojala says he was told by Chicago police that the man was from a Muslim family and on the Anita Dee II he was with a group of Muslim men who later bailed him out of jail.

“It’s just real suspicious,” says Ojala. “It looks like he was befriended by these guys. He’s the manager of a little sandwich shop, and they would go in, they befriended him, took him on the cruise, got him drunk. And I think they figured this is a good site for us to do something. Let’s let the kid get in trouble.”

Ojala thinks the men “put him up to something” and talked the younger man into jumping off the tour boat.

“Now at least they know, he didn’t get very far. I hope that keeps them out.”

Nonetheless, Ojala says they are installing new locks on doors at Chicago Harbor Lock.