Two women are accused of hitting and dragging a police officer with a vehicle after he caught one of them shoplifting Thursday in north suburban Libertyville.
The officer entered a store for a business check about 11:45 a.m. in the 100 block of Peterson Road and saw 40-year-old Yolanda K. Holmes “in the process of committing a retail theft,” according to Libertyville police.
When the business’s anti-theft alarms went off, employees called her back to check that purchased items had been deactivated, police said. Holmes left a bag on the counter, walked through the anti-theft gates again and ran into the parking lot.
The officer caught up with Holmes as she was getting into the passenger seat of a vehicle, police said. As the officer was confronting Holmes, the driver put the vehicle into reverse, “striking the officer with the door and dragging him a short distance” before driving away on Peterson Road and onto eastbound I-94.
A description of the vehicle was broadcast over dispatch radio channels and the vehicle was later pulled over by a Lincolnshire officer on I-94, police said. Holmes and the driver, 23-year-old Anita J. McGhee, were both arrested.
Holmes, a resident of Broadview, was charged with felony counts of retail theft, and aggravated battery to a police officer; and a misdemeanor count of marijuana possession, police and the Lake County sheriff’s office said. She was also charged with a felony count of obstructing justice after authorities learned she’d provided false identification and had three outstanding warrants from McHenry County and Wisconsin.
McGhee, who lives in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side, was charged with a felony count of aggravated battery to a police officer, and leaving the scene of a personal injury accident, police said.
McGhee was ordered held on a $20,000 bond on Saturday and was expected to appear in court again Nov. 16, according to the Lake County sheriff’s office. Bond information for Holmes was not immediately available, but she was next scheduled to appear in court on Nov. 17.
