A man who admitted to getting drunk and passing out while riding the el asked police to help him locate his 5-year-old son, whom he had lost track of while drinking, according to a department report.
It was shortly after 1:30 a.m. on Feb. 22 when 24-year-old Donte McDonald, of Chicago, told police that when he awoke on the Green Line he realized he didn’t know where his son was. McDonald allegedly told police he had been on several different trains and couldn’t remember where his son might be.
Because he was so intoxicated, McDonald was not much help in giving police a starting point to begin their search, according to a department report. They took him to the station to begin coordinating their efforts, and eventually learned that the boy might be with his grandmother in Chicago. A city officer went to the grandmother’s home and found the boy. According to police, McDonald had taken his son there several hours earlier, but was too intoxicated to remember.
Meanwhile, before McDonald was taken to the police station, officers patted him down to make sure he wasn’t carrying any weapons. Police allegedly recovered a loaded .25 caliber handgun from the man’s pocket. McDonald claimed to have taken the gun from a juvenile in order to protect the child from harm. While drinking, he also forgot that he was carrying the weapon, he reportedly told police.
McDonald was charged with two felonies related to the unlawful use of a weapon.
Different chases, same result
Police gave chase Feb. 25 to two vehicles, but in both cases ended their pursuit before they could apprehend the suspects.
Shortly before noon, an officer recognized a Forest Park man for whom there was an outstanding warrant and attempted to stop the suspect on Roosevelt Road. The suspect, however, pulled his car into a parking lot and slowly weaved through the parking aisles before quickly pulling back onto the road and heading west at a high rate of speed, according to a department report on the incident. The vehicle sped through several intersections and was approaching 9th Avenue when the officer ended his pursuit.
Later, just before 7 p.m., police watched as an SUV pulled into the forest preserve on Roosevelt and met another vehicle in a parking lot there. A woman from the second vehicle handed over a package wrapped in brown paper, and then both vehicles left the area. The officer allegedly tried to stop the driver of the SUV, but the vehicle sped away on Roosevelt, driving west in the eastbound lanes and running several stop signs. At the intersection of 8th and Harvard in Maywood, the officer ended the chase.
DUI suspect in collision
Police arrested a River Forest man for drunken driving after he allegedly crossed the center line while driving on Harlem and struck an oncoming car. No injuries were noted by police in their report of the incident, and the suspect, 48-year-old Joseph Burke, allegedly had a blood-alcohol level of more than two times the legal limit.
The crash occurred just after midnight on Feb. 26. When police responded, the smell of alcohol on Burke was notable and his speech was slurred, according to a department report. The man told police he had consumed four or five beers at a bar in Chicago. While at the police station, Burke allegedly registered a blood-alcohol level of .163. The legal limit for intoxication in Illinois is .08.
He was charged with two counts of driving under the influence, and with a lane violation.
Car towed, eventually
Police checked on the passengers of a vehicle parked on the 1100 block of Marengo at about 1:30 a.m. and allegedly found what may have been an open container of alcohol in the center console. But during a discussion with the woman driving the car, a male passenger kept making attempts to get out. After being told repeatedly to stay in the car, the man exited, began walking away, and said he was going to have a cigarette, according to a department report.
The officer started to follow him, but the suspect ran through several yards and hopped a couple fences in the neighborhood. A search turned up nothing, and the driver of the car slipped away in the meantime.
Then, about an hour later police spotted the car again, only this time there was a different woman driving it. When asked, the woman said she had no idea what had happened earlier in the evening and explained she was driving the car because her brother didn’t want it to be towed.
Police, however, discovered that the new driver, 23-year-old Catherine Meeks, of Chicago, did not have a valid license. She was arrested and the car was towed.
These items were taken from the records of the Forest Park Police Department between Feb. 21 and Feb. 28, 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
