Five men were indicted by a grand jury Monday for a rash of carjackings in Tremont, County Prosecutor Timothy McGinty announced at a 4 p.m. news conference. Four of the five men have been arrested, but one remains at large.
Kenneth Jackson, 18; Antowine Palmer, 22; Tervon’tae Taylor, 22; D’Wan Dillard, 18; and Calvin Rembert, 22; in various groupings, were responsible for five armed robberies in Tremont throughout July and August, including the pistol-whipping of a Barrio employee, the robbery of a Toyota Corolla a few days later, and the robbery of a Jeep Grand Cherokee earlier this month.
McGinty said police suspect the robberies were gang-related and that “lucrative rewards” will be offered for information about Calvin Rembert, who remains at large, and for other information pertinent to the investigation.
UPDATE: 9/1, 11:45 a.m. — Calvin Rembert was arrested Monday night, via Cleveland.com
He said detectives from Cleveland Police, the County Sheriff’s Department, the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority and the FBI worked collaboratively and with great focus to see that justice was served.
“It’s the most impressive series of [gang-related] arrests I’ve ever seen in my career,” McGinty said, during a brief Q&A.
Police will continue to investigate the crimes, but McGinty said the criminals weren’t doing themselves any favors.
“These are not the Napoleons of criminals,” he said. “They’re not quite idiots, but they’re pretty damn close. We look forward to putting these individuals away until they’re old men.”
One reporter asked how the Grand Jury managed to indict them so quickly. McGinty responded that because of the successful investigation, which included confessions and video evidence, the decision was easy.
“This is a direct product of great police work,” McGinty said, and added that he and the police working the case wouldn’t be satisfied until the robberies had been solved “100 percent.”
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2015.
McGinty should keep his mouth shut and actually work hard to win a race around the bases versus shrewd defense attorneys — his batting average in recent high-profile cases is staggering well below the Mendoza Line.
I am glad that the cops got these guys but we need to maintain high security around I-490.
Routine patrols are not something that should only happen when we’re going to through a terror spree like this.
BTW, why don’t any of these crimes constitute terror? Felt a heck of a lot more terrorized than the random nutcase who tries to join ISIS via email and goes away to federal prison for 10 years. These guys are way more terrifying robbing and beating people at gunpoint in our front yards.
Gangs are just as much terrorists and they should be treated as such. This was a coordinated gang effort to terrorize a neighborhood and it should be treated as such.
Glad that these pieces of trash are off the streets now. I’ve been in Tremont plenty of times, but hearing about the recent robberies doesn’t exactly make me want to run on down there anytime soon. I really do hope they get put away for a very long time. It’s bad enough when you rob someone, but you get into much, much darker territory when you’re pulling guns on people and pistol whipping them. It’s a shame, really. 5 lives flushed down the drain, wasted, and all for what?