CHICAGO – A man has been charged with robbing a South Side convenience store while under electronic monitoring for an ongoing burglary case. Timothy Bowden, 28, robbed the store while enjoying the “essential rights of movement” granted by the SAFE-T Act to electronic monitoring of inmates, the sheriff’s office said.
“Essential exercise” allows people fitted with ankle monitors to spend two days a week outside their homes, ostensibly completing “essential” activities such as applying for jobs, running errands and going to medical appointments. An aggravated robbery is generally not considered an approved “essential” activity.
Last Monday afternoon, Chicago Police responded to a robbery at La Feria Supermarket, 9704 South Commercial, in South Deering. A 46-year-old store employee told officers the man gave her a robbery note that said, “Give me the $ I have to shoot.” After taking money, the robber fled the store.
According to his CPD arrest report, officers found Bowden about a block away, wearing clothing similar to the robber’s. The store’s cashier confirmed he was the robber.
Judge Caroline Glennon-Goodman arrested Bowden on a charge of aggravated robbery. According to her arrest warrant, the store employee told police that Bowden had also robbed the store once, but he is only charged with last week’s robbery.
Bowden was arrested in September 2023 on burglary charges and had been under electronic monitoring since July, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office said.
Even though people in “essential movement” can enjoy two days a week outside the home, those days will still be applied to any jail time they receive upon conviction.
Under Cook County’s 2025 budget, operational control of the county’s primary electronic monitoring program will be transferred from the sheriff’s office to the county court system, led by Chief Judge Timothy Evans. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who has often expressed concerns about judges placing violent criminals under electronic monitoring, has been trying to remove the program from his office for years.
According to Dart’s office, moving the electronic monitoring program to the courts will bring the county in line with national standards. Cook County has the only sheriff’s office in the country that conducts an electronic pretrial monitoring program, a Dart spokesman said.
Under the current timeline, the sheriff’s office must stop accepting new participants in electronic monitoring by April 1, Dart’s office said. All electronic supervision placements after that date will be through a court-managed system.
Dart’s spokesman said his office will continue to monitor all participants in the sheriff’s program until their criminal cases are completed or a judge releases them from electronic monitoring.
The spokesperson said last month that discussions between the sheriff’s office, Evans’ office and other officials were “ongoing” and that Dart’s team was working to “ensure a safe and efficient transition beginning April 1.”
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