Rush hour car chase ends in crash
A Forest Park officer attempted to pull over the driver of a 1997 green Buick LeSabre around 9 a.m. on March 4 around the intersection of Madison and Harlem when he discovered the license plates on the car had been revoked. The Buick stopped in Oak Park at Madison St. and Wisconsin Ave., but as the officer exited his squad car, the driver accelerated and sped away, with the police car following, clocking the squad at 60 mph.
The Buick reportedly ran a red light at Oak Park Ave. and hit a car traveling northbound. The Buick continued to Elmwood and Madison, where it crashed into a parkway tree. The driver exited and fled on foot. A passenger was taken into custody by Chicago police who were assisting, and Oak Park officers nabbed the driver, a 27-year-old man from Broadview, in the 500 block of Ridgeland.
When officers returned to the car, they reportedly detected a strong smell of cannabis and recovered small plastic sandwich bags, small clear zip-lock bags and a digital scale from the car. They also found an opened bottle of Patron tequila inside the Le Sabre. The driver reportedly denied any involvement with drugs, but police recovered $1,045 from his pocket. He told police, “I got a hundred here and a hundred there from different family members.”
He was found to have 12 previous drug arrests with five convictions and was charged with aggravated fleeing to elude a police officer, driving with license suspended, speeding, leaving the scene of an accident and transporting an open alcohol container.
Burglary to auto
A Chevy Impala was burglarized overnight, March 3, when someone smashed the window and removed a Garmin GPS and multiple CDs in the 1300 block of Marengo.
Someone smashed the window of a parked Chrysler Pacifica van in the village lot at Circle and Madison and broke off the ignition key lock, overnight on March 4.
The rear window of a parked Toyota was shattered on the evening of March 9 in the 400 block of Hannah.
Someone smashed the driver’s rear window of a 2011 Lincoln, parked in the 900 block of Elgin in the early morning of March 10, and ransacked the interior.
Residential Burglary
Two apartments in the 7600 block of Wilcox were burglarized during the day on March 7. The owner of the building arrived home to find the back door open, the front doors kicked in and both apartments ransacked.
A garage in the 1500 block of Marengo was burglarized for a second time on March 3 in two months. The overhead garage door was forced open and an electric hedge trimmer was removed.
Unwelcome sight on CTA
A 21-year-old student told police she was alone in a train car traveling east from the CTA Blue Line terminal around 10 a.m. on March 6 when an unknown 20- to 30-year-old man entered the car and sat down directly facing her with his legs in a “V shape” restricting her from moving to another seat. She said the man unzipped his pants and began to fondle himself while looking directly at her. She told police when the train came to the next stop, she jumped up and exited the car, taking a train back to the Desplaines stop where she called her family.
These items were obtained from the records of the Forest Park Police Department, March 3-10, and represent a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Unless otherwise indicated, anyone named in the report has only been charged with a crime.
