Addison Timlin: Loyola University Chicago student Robbed train conductor at Gunpoint to get Lunch money was ratted out by his own Mom, but Judge didn’t buy the story and Denied the teen bail

Mom marches son, 18, to police station after recognizing him as suspect in $100 Chicago armed train robbery ‘to buy a snack before his next university lecture’

A Chicago train conductor was robbed at gunpoint during a downtown stop on Tuesday, and the theft was caught on camera
Police released images of the gunman and a woman turned in her son after recognizing him in photos circulated by local news outlets
She drove her son, 18-year-old Zion Brown, to the police station later that night
Brown, an economics major at Loyola University, was arrested charged with armed robbery
His lawyer claimed he committed the crime because he was hungry and needed a snack before class, but a judge didn’t buy the excuse and denied the teen bail

A Loyola University student on his way to school robbed a Metra conductor at gunpoint Tuesday afternoon because he was hungry and needed money to get some food before class — and that’s according to his defense attorney.

Zion Brown, 18, was arrested later that night after his mother recognized him in news coverage of the robbery and drove him to the Calumet City police department to surrender, prosecutors said.

According to the allegations, the Metra Electric Line train had just arrived at the Van Buren Street Station in Grant Park when Brown pulled out a gun and pointed it at the train conductor’s stomach around 2:07 p.m. He allegedly took $110 from the conductor’s pockets on the platform and left the station.
Brown later told police that he saw the conductor handling cash on the train and decided to rob him of the money, prosecutors said. His private defense attorney said Brown was hungry and was looking for something to eat.
During a police interview, Brown, who has no criminal background, allegedly said the weapon he displayed was a BB gun that he tossed into a dumpster after the robbery.
The defense attorney said Brown went to class at Loyola after the hold-up. He encouraged Judge Maryam Ahmad to reflect on her days as a hungry college student as she weighed the state’s request to have Brown held without bail.
That argument didn’t sit well with Ahmad, who said she remembered being a hungry college student, but she never considered pulling a gun on someone and taking their money. She granted the state’s no-bail request.