A judge ordered a man released from custody after he was arrested for possessing ammunition without a FOID card, which prompted a SWAT response and shelter-in-place order in Lake in the Hills Thursday morning.
Joel Fernandez, 20, of Lake in the Hills, was charged with four counts of possessing ammunition without a valid Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card, a Class A misdemeanor.
The Lake in the Hills Police Department, assisted by the Carpentersville Police Department and the McHenry County Sheriff’s Multi-Jurisdictional SWAT team, executed a search warrant at Fernandez’s residence around 9:51 a.m. Thursday.
Fernandez was arrested without incident during the warrant, which took place in the 1400 block of Clayton Marsh Drive in Lake in the Hills.
“The search warrant was part of a joint investigation into illegal activity,” the Lake in the Hills Police Department said in a statement.
A criminal complaint filed in McHenry County Circuit Court alleges that Fernandez knowingly possessed – without a valid FOID card – 20 cartridges of .45 Auto Sellier & Bellot branded full metal jacket (FMJ), 13 cartridges of .223 Remington branded steel core FMJ, one cartridge of 9mm Blazer Brass branded FMJ, one cartridge of 9mm Remington-Peters branded FMJ, one cartridge of 9mm Speer branded jacketed hollow point (JHP) and two cartridges of 9mm Sig Sauer branded JHP.
This means that Fernandez was allegedly possessing 25 cartridges of pistol ammunition and 13 cartridges of rifle ammunition, totaling 38.
The complaint did not allege that Fernandez possessed firearms.
Fernandez was transported to the McHenry County Jail and appeared in Initial Appearance Court on Friday.
The charges are non-detainable under the Illinois SAFE-T Act and McHenry County Judge Joel Berg released Fernandez from custody.
Berg placed Fernandez on pre-trial conditions that include being under pre-trial supervision and not possessing any firearms or ammunition.
Prosecutors asked the judge to order Fernandez to have no contact with any Insane Deuces gang members, a request that Berg granted.
Fernandez was also ordered not to use social media by commenting or posting online.
Fernandez does not have any prior criminal adult cases against him in McHenry County.
The SWAT operation prompted police to issue Nixle and social media alerts advising residents to shelter in place but it did not specify an exact radius of the order.
The department asked people to avoid the block encompassing Washington Street, Lincoln Street, McKinley Street and Clayton Marsh Drive.
The department later issued an updated Nixle alert at around 10:40 a.m., saying the shelter-in-place had been cancelled.
“That order was in effect for less than one hour,” the police department said.
The alert said the police activity in the area of Clayton Marsh Drive and Washington Street, which do not intersect, had “safely concluded.”
Officials added that there was “no longer” a threat to public safety.
“Thank you for your cooperation in this law enforcement matter,” the alert said.
A nearby pre-school was reportedly on lockdown but other schools in the Lake in the Hills area were not reported to be on lockdown.
A spokesperson for District 47 told Lake and McHenry County Scanner that Indian Prairie Elementary School, which is approximately a half-mile to the west of the search warrant, “did not receive guidance from the police department prompting a lockdown.”
A spokesperson for Community Unit School District 300 said no schools in the district went on lockdown on Thursday morning.
Fernandez is scheduled to appear in court again on March 27 for a plea hearing.