18-year-old from Maywood charged as accomplice in robbery tied to Swedish Hospital killing

The new development here is simple but important — police and prosecutors have now charged a second person in the robbery that set the whole Swedish Hospital chain of events in motion. Jeron Tate, 18, of Maywood was ordered held pending trial on May 1 after authorities said he helped Alphanso Talley rob and beat a Family Dollar cashier in Albany Park on April 25. Talley is the man already charged with killing Chicago police Officer John Bartholomew later that same day at Swedish Hospital. (abc7chicago.com) ### Who is the newly charged defendant? Tate is the alleged accomplice in the store robbery, not the hospital shooting itself. Chicago police said he was arrested Thursday in Englewood and charged with armed robbery, aggravated kidnapping, aggravated battery and unlawful restraint. A judge ordered him detained, and his next court date is May 20. (abc7chicago.com) ### What do prosecutors say happened in the store? The robbery happened just after 8 a.m. at a Family Dollar in the 3200 block of West Lawrence Avenue. Prosecutors say Tate and Talley entered wearing masks, held a 55-year-old cashier at gunpoint, broke her nose, took her wallet and ke(abc7chicago.com)y this case feels so grim. (abc7chicago.com) ### How did police find them so fast? The cash register money included a GPS tracker. That gave officers a way to trace the suspects after they left the store, and prosecutors say surveillance also showed them fleeing on scooters. Police caught Talley that morning, and officers recovered the cashier’s wallet nearby. Tate, prosecutors say, got away at first and was arrested days later. (abc7chicago.com) ### So how does this connect to Swedish Hospital? After Talley was arrested, prosecutors say he told officers he had swallowed narcotics, so they took him to Swedish Hospital for medical observation. There, while being prepared for a CT scan, he allegedly pulled a handgun from under a(abc7chicago.com)wbez.org) ### Is Tate accused in that shooting? No — and that distinction matters. Multiple reports say Tate ran from the robbery scene and is not charged in the hospital attack. The legal theory against him is that he participated in the violent robbery that immediately preceded it, not that he helped carry out the shooting inside the hospital. (abc7chicago.com) ### Why is this case getting so much attention? Because it is really two failures stacked on top of each other. First, a brutal street robbery. Then a hospital shooting after an arrest. Talley’s record has become a major part of the fallout too — NBC Chicago reported he had prior arme(abc7chicago.com)ent about detention, supervision and how a suspect got a gun into a hospital exam area in the first place. (nbcchicago.com) ### What does the new charge actually change? It fills in the missing first chapter. Until now, most of the attention was on the hospital shooting and the unanswered question of how Talley was armed. Charging Tate gives prosecutors a fuller account of the robbery that started the day’s violence and adds another defendant to the case built around that first crime. (abc7chicago.com) ### Bottom line Tate’s arrest does not answer the biggest mystery at Swedish Hospital — the gun. But it does make the timeline clearer. What ended with a murdered officer and a wounded partner began with an $110 robbery and a badly injured cashier. (abc7chicago.com)