Parolee Accused of Tossing Second Machine Gun, This Time in River North Dumpster

A Chicago man who once hurled a machine gun into the Chicago River to avoid arrest is back in custody after police say he pulled a strikingly similar move on July 29, this time stuffing a switch-equipped pistol into a yellow Pikachu backpack and tossing it into a River North dumpster. Deral Willis, 33, had been out on parole for less than three months when the new arrest happened, according to court records.

The incident began when a Chicago Police Department surveillance camera operator spotted what looked like a drug deal near State Street and Grand in River North, according to CWB Chicago. Officers moved in and spotted Willis nearby, and when he saw them, he ran. Police say he was carrying the Pikachu backpack as he fled into an alley, and surveillance video reviewed by prosecutors reportedly shows him throwing the backpack into a dumpster before officers caught up with him and arrested him in a nearby parking garage.

Inside the backpack, officers recovered a loaded handgun equipped with a Glock switch, a small aftermarket device that lets a semiautomatic pistol fire continuously with a single pull of the trigger. Willis was charged with being a felon in possession of a machine gun and with possession of a firearm by a repeat felon. Judge Antara Rivera granted prosecutors' request to detain him, and he is now held by the Illinois Department of Corrections on a parole violation, with a new parole date set for October 7.

An Eerily Similar 2023 Case

The circumstances mirror an arrest from September 2023, when Willis fled a traffic stop near State and Wacker around 8:30 p.m. and threw a tan pistol equipped with an aftermarket auto-switch into the Chicago River from the State Street Bridge, in front of Marina City. A Chicago Police Marine Unit diver recovered that weapon from the water. Willis was convicted in that case and sentenced to four years in prison in October 2023, and he had only been out on parole since May 2026 before this latest arrest, released less than three months before the new charges were filed.

Willis's criminal history stretches back further. In January 2016, a Cook County judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison for two June 2012 armed robberies committed in Wicker Park and West Town, in which three victims were robbed at gunpoint and a female bicyclist was struck in the face with a firearm. He also carries convictions for aggravated robbery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon dating back to 2011, along with several other felony convictions, the outlet reported.

What Willis Now Faces Legally

Under Illinois law, unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon becomes a Class X felony punishable by 10 to 40 years in prison when the weapon is a machine gun or is equipped with an auto-switch, according to the Drummond Law firm's overview of the statute. Separately, possessing a firearm after two or more prior qualifying felony convictions constitutes unlawful possession by a repeat felony offender, also a Class X felony, carrying 6 to 30 years with mandatory incarceration and no eligibility for probation, per the Law Office of Clyde Guilamo. That charge was formerly known as Armed Habitual Criminal.

Willis's case lands amid a broader crackdown on machine gun conversion devices across Cook County. In January 2025, Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke instituted a mandatory prison enforcement policy for any felony case involving these devices, citing a 15-fold increase in illegally modified firearm recoveries by local law enforcement since 2019, according to the Cook County State's Attorney's Office. ATF data cited by that office showed law enforcement recovered 604 conversion devices in Chicago in 2024, up 7 percent from the 546 recovered in 2023, with nearly half of those recoveries linked to active shooting incidents through ballistic tracking.

A Weapon Tied to Deadly Consequences

The stakes behind the enforcement push are not abstract. In November 2024, Chicago Police Officer Enrique Martinez was fatally shot during a traffic stop when a passenger fired a converted, fully automatic handgun equipped with an illegal Glock switch, discharging at least 14 rounds in seconds, according to Everytown Research & Policy. That shooting resulted in two deaths, including the officer's. Nationally, the spread of these devices has been dramatic: ATF data compiled by The Smoking Gun shows agencies recovered 11,088 conversion devices between 2019 and 2023, a 784 percent increase over that span, with 5,816 recovered in 2023 alone.

Chicago has also taken its fight over the devices to court. In March 2024, the city filed a lawsuit against gun manufacturer Glock, alleging the company's handgun design makes its pistols uniquely easy to convert into fully automatic weapons using cheap aftermarket switches. Willis's case now joins a growing list of local prosecutions tied to the same underlying problem, including recent Hoodline reporting on an Austin gunfire switch discovery and a federal sting that exposed Chicago's illegal machine-gun marketplace earlier this summer.

For now, Willis remains in state custody on the parole violation while the new felony charges move through court. His next parole date is listed as October 7, though that timeline could shift depending on how the new case against him proceeds.