It was almost 3 a.m. on Dec. 12 when police were called to Deko’s restaurant on Madison to breakup a fight, and they were quickly led on a brief chase to the intersection with Burkhardt when the prime suspect in the alleged assault began running. With relative ease, officers caught up with 22-year-old Timothy Zelins when he crouched behind a parked car to hide. Realizing he was caught, Zelins emerged from behind the car, but took a confrontational tone with police, according to a department report.
“Don’t you (expletive) touch me,” Zelins allegedly shouted. An officer threatened the North Riverside resident with his Taser, and took Zelins into custody.
Witnesses to the altercation offered several versions of events, but the incident centered on a scuffle between Zelins and the owner of Deko’s. According to statements made to police, Zelins punched the restaurant owner several times. One witness said the business owner swung first. Others said that Zelins tossed a basket of food onto another patron and when he was ordered to leave the restaurant, he took a swing at the owner.
Police charged the suspect with two counts of battery and one count of disorderly conduct.
Suspect caught with marijuana
The passenger in a Pontiac Grand Prix was issued a local citation for drug possession Dec. 11 after the vehicle was reported to police as “suspicious.”
According to a department report, the car was stopped on the 400 block of Beloit shortly after 8 p.m., and authorities immediately noticed the smell of marijuana coming from inside the vehicle. The driver, a 20-year-old Forest Park woman, and her passenger, a 25-year-old man, also with a local address, were asked if they had any drugs in the car. Stevie Hymon, the passenger, allegedly responded in the affirmative and pulled two small bags of the drug from his sock. The driver was not charged in the incident.
Husband arrested for battery
Police were called on Dec. 12 to the home of a married couple with an apparent history of abusive spats. The husband, 46-year-old Michael Hahn, was arrested for allegedly launching a cell phone into his wife’s face.
According to a department report, Hahn’s wife called authorities at noon following a dispute over bills at their home on the 800 block of Beloit. Both husband and wife told police they were arguing over a name on a bill for that cell phone. The woman told police she asked for the phone, and her husband threw it into her face causing a swollen and cut lip.
Hahn denied throwing the phone at his wife, and said she missed it when he tossed it to her.
The couple has been married for two years, according to the police report, “and have been the center of several domestic related incident over those two years.”
Too many air fresheners
A Maywood man with whom police are familiar was stopped Dec. 7 while driving near the intersection of Harlem and Madison because he had several objects hanging from his rearview mirror, according to a department report. When the officer approached the driver’s window, she noted several air fresheners in the car and the smell of marijuana. The driver, 23-year-old Jeremy Myhre, was visibly shaking, according to the report.
Under the officer’s questioning, Myhre allegedly admitted to having some marijuana in his jacket pocket. A subsequent search of the car found two bags of the drug inside a jacket pocket, which Myhre claimed were for personal use and not distribution. The total weight of the drug was 29 grams, just shy of the threshold for pressing more serious charges.
In addition to the drug possession charge, Myhre was also cited for driving an uninsured vehicle and for the objects allegedly blocking his view through the windshield.
Damned if you do …
Police were ready to catch a suspected thief Dec. 11 when several officers stationed themselves outside of the CVS store on the 7200 block of Circle. According to a department report, authorities got a call from an employee there alerting them to a man who appeared to be committing theft. But when the suspect, Daniel Jasch, 25, emerged from the store, officers learned he had placed the inventory back on the shelves.
Jasch, a Bloomingdale resident, was arrested, however, on four warrants issued by other municipalities.
These items were taken from the records of the Forest Park Police Department between Dec. 6 and Dec. 13, and represent only a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Anyone named in this report has only been charged with a crime. The cases have not been adjudicated.
-Compiled by Josh Adams
