Shermaine Miles, 51, has an affinity for going to jail and hearing the “bang” and “clank” of metal. Having been arrested 397 times since 1978 for petty crimes including misdemeanor battery, prostitution, theft, reckless conduct and drinking in public, the Chicagoan served time in prison on 10 occasions. On November 18, when she was released from Logan Correctional Center in Downstate Lincoln into Humboldt Park, a second-chance residential home for ex-inmates, she apparently made a vow to straighten up and live by the letter of the law by staying sober and cease hanging with her drinking buddies.
“I’m just not going to go back around there,” Miles tells the media. “I can love [my friends] from a distance. Anybody that’s drugging, I can’t be around.”
Fellow Chicagoans on the north side are filled with dread when she comes around. She harasses passers-by and terrorizes the community and once chased a local politician, Ald. James Cappleman, wielding a knife.
“It’s sad. She really needs a structured environment to give us all, including herself, some peace. The real story is that we have someone who is terrorizing our community and we can’t stop it. This has gone on for years and years with her. My goal is that we do something so that she stops falling through the cracks,” he tells media.
She even fakes seizures. Once Windy City cop recalls her foaming at the mouth while lying in the middle of the street. Emergency vehicles were making their way to her. When he approached, she told him she loved him and immediately she returned to acting normal as if nothing happened.
Her latest arrest comes after jacking a 63-year-old man’s keys. She was charged with misdemeanor battery, theft, reckless conduct and drinking in public.
Freedom was obviously overwhelming.
Check out her many mugshots.
