Who Is Andrew Shelton? Felon Who Stole Guns From Chicago Train Sentenced

A Chicago street gang member was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday for stealing more than 100 newly minted guns from a Norfolk Southern yard on Chicago's South Side, reports said.

Announcing the sentence, federal judge John Tharp called Andrew Shelton a “serial train robber” and said such thefts have contributed to "an epidemic of violence" in the city.

According to ABC affiliate KABC-TV, 43-year-old Shelton, and several accomplices stole revolvers, rifles and other guns from a freight train that had stopped overnight at the South Side facility on April 12, 2015.

According to the prosecutors, the guns were then sold to drug dealers. Three similar thefts occurred from 2014 to 2016, reported the Washington Post.

The court linked the theft of the weapons to the prevalent gun violence in Chicago.

A resident of Riverdale, Shelton kept 13 guns for himself and quickly sold them on the black market.

He had previously been convicted six times for stealing various items like bicycles, tennis shoes and other things from trains, but had never received a sentence of more than three years behind bars.

Judge Tharp observed that stealing guns was far worse than the other robberies and Shelton should have known that guns ruined lives and families as he lost his dad to gun violence and was shot 12 times himself.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Parente said: “I get a call every few weeks about another gun recovery (by law enforcement) in this case. These aren’t sneakers, they aren’t computers. … It doesn’t get more serious.”

A married man and the father of 10 children, Shelton said in court: “I look at things much different now,” reported the Chicago Tribune. The report also said Shelton issued a brief apology to his family and the court before his sentencing and stated this conviction had finally raised a desire in him to turn his life around.

Shelton’s attorney, Gregory Mitchell, had asked the judge for a prison sentence of five years for his client, saying the prosecutors’ efforts to draw a direct link between Shelton’s “crime of opportunity” and violence happening in the streets of the city was overreaching.

Mitchell also said Shelton was worried that high levels of “passions” over gun violence after the mass shooting in Las Vegas would affect his sentence.

“It’s unfair, judge,” Mitchell said. “Mr. Shelton looked at these (weapons) simply as a commodity.”

The Tribune cited court records which showed Shelton was part of a crew of burglars who entered rail cars on freight trains parked in the Norfolk Southern rail yard using bolt cutters.

Another member of the gang told investigators that after the arms burglary they took the guns to the basement of a co-defendant, where they tore open the packages, with one of the crew exclaiming, "Oh man, these motherf----- are pretty!" according to the prosecutors.

The theft was discovered by a railway worker at 7 a.m. EDT the next morning after he found broken locks and bolt cutters lying on the ground. However, the thieves had already made away with the guns and were already busy selling them off.