Man charged with falsely reporting bomb, fleeing police in Aurora

An Indiana man has been charged with falsely reporting that a man was holding a bomb in a van he was driving.

Raul Gutierrez Jr., 37, of the 1900 block of Koehne Street in Indianapolis, is charged with disorderly conduct - falsely reporting a bomb and two counts of aggravated fleeing and eluding police. All are felony charges.

Gutierrez is also charged with reckless driving, failing to obey a traffic signals and a stop sign, speeding 26 to 34 mph over the speed limit, improper lane use, driving with a suspended license, driving an uninsured vehicle, having improper lighting and driving on the wrong side of the road, according to Kane County court records and a Kane County sheriff's deputy's report.

The report alleges that around 1 a.m. Oct. 4, a white van repeatedly honked as it passed two deputies on Farnsworth Avenue at Sheffer Road near Aurora. The van had its lights off, so deputies tried to pull it over.

The report said the van continued driving into Aurora, turned onto westbound New York Street, traveled on several side streets, and then went south on Route 31. The deputies punctured one of the rear tires with a mobile spike strip. But the van kept going onto Route 34 and went to southbound Route 47.

According to the report, the driver called 911 and said a man with a gun was inside the van.

When the vehicle was stopped at Walker Road, the driver told the deputies there was an unknown man with a bomb in the rear cargo area, according to the report.

Nobody else was in the van.

Gutierrez then said the bomb was under the driver's seat, the report said. The Kane County SWAT team and bomb squad searched the vehicle but found no bomb or evidence of explosives, according to the report.

Gutierrez told deputies that two men tried to attack him at an I-88 tollway oasis in DeKalb and that they had been performing an insurance scam on him for two months, the report said. Workers at the oasis told the deputies they had not seen any altercation.

Gutierrez also said he honked to get the deputies' attention.

A Kane County prosecutor asked that Gutierrez be detained in jail pending trial, but a judge denied the request.