Crime, Police and Courts

WATSEKA — A Watseka Community High School teacher was put on administrative leave this past week after being arrested by Watseka police for the charges of grooming and distributing harmful material.

KANKAKEE — The man wanted in the February shooting death of Michael Hines, of Kankakee, was arrested Wednesday in Mesa, Ariz.

URBANA — A Kankakee man, 35-year-old Javan Jamar Thompson, has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for drug and weapons charges, the U.S. attorney office for the Central District of Illinois said in a news release.

SHELDON — The U.S. Marshals Service Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested 44-year-old Esteban Saenz, of Sheldon, at a residence in Sheldon Friday.

Last week, Harris' co-defendant and boyfriend, Darius Sullivan, was convicted of murder, attempted murder and endangering the lives of his three children when he shot two officers in December 2021. Attention now turns to preparations for the …

The two suspects — 21-year-old Johnny McCaskill, of Chicago, and 25-year-old Eric Johnson, also of Chicago — ran from a stolen vehicle into a bean field near Exit 308 on the south side of Kankakee, according to a news release from the sheriff…