Hate crime suspect caught after mistaken release from jail

CHICAGO – A man charged with threatening violence at gay bars in Chicago who was mistakenly released from jail is once again behind bars.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Cara Smith says 31-year-old Shane Sleeper was taken into custody on Chicago’s North Side Thursday afternoon.

Sleeper was released Tuesday by jail officials because the misdemeanour charges against him had been dropped. They didn’t realize that the charges were only dropped to facilitate the filing of felony charges of state terrorism, hate crime and harassment, and that he was ordered held without bail.

Sleeper was arrested in February. Among the threats, authorities say he suggested to one bar that Chicago would see a similar mass shooting to the one that occurred in 2016 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 49 people dead.