‘Just blew a hole in my ceiling’
A 36-year-old Forest Park man told police he was trying to clean a 12-gauge shotgun when it went off in an apartment building in the 400 block of Jackson Boulevard around 6:50 p.m. Aug. 31.
“I know why you’re here, I just blew a hole through my ceiling,” he told police, who noted he smelled strongly of alcohol. A .22 caliber Browning handgun was in plain view on the nightstand. Police recovered a Bersa .380 ACP handgun and .25 Intratec handgun – both loaded — from a drawer. No one upstairs answered the door, so firefighters broke in and discovered a large hole in the living room floor and two smaller holes in the living room ceiling. The weapons enthusiast was arrested and charged with reckless discharge of a firearm.
Thornton’s
Police observed a 2004 Infiniti pull out of the lot of Thornton’s gas station around 12:10 p.m. on Sept. 1 and turn onto Harlem without using a turn signal. A man in the passenger seat made furtive movements as officers followed the car onto the I-290 expressway. They curbed the vehicle. Although the driver and passenger declined to give permission to search the car, officers first recovered baggies from the sock of one passenger that contained a white powdery substance suspected to be heroin. When a drug-sniffing K-9 dog was summoned, it alerted for the presence of drugs, which cops found when they did search the vehicle. The driver, a 25 year old from Addison was charged with possession of a controlled substance and drug equipment. A 26 year old from Lombard and an 18 year old from Crest Hill were charged with possession of drug equipment.
Transportation
A 48-year-old male driver smashed his 2001 Pontiac Grand Am into a fence in the 7700 block of Roosevelt Road around 12:20 a.m. Aug. 30. He told police his brakes failed, and did not appear intoxicated, but cops noticed he had a suspended license and arrested him. The Pontiac was seized.
Police observed a 31-year-old River Forest man skateboarding in the middle of Harlem Avenue in the 200 block North around 1:30 a.m. Aug. 30. According to reports he was, “waving his hands in the air at cars who were attempting to pass him.” A well-being check turned up the fact that he had an outstanding warrant from June from the City of Oak Brook for theft. Officers took him and his skateboard to the lockup to await the Oak Brook police.
Strictly recreational
Police responded to reports of a man approaching offering to sell marijuana to passersby near the Green Line train Sept. 3. Police recovered two grams of pot from the 17-year-old Chicago man’s sock. He was written a local ordinance ticket.
Apartment burglaries
A woman arrived home from work around 9:30 p.m. to the 100 block of Lathrop Sept. 4 to find her back door open, personal items strewn around the kitchen, two laptops missing and bedroom drawers ransacked. Missing were rings, necklaces and earrings and spare keys and checks. Missing items were valued over $4,000
A man in the 400 block of Marengo told police he arrived home around 2:50 a.m. Sept. 6 and noticed the screen and sliding patio doors of his apartment seemed to have been disturbed. Inside police found the apartment ransacked. The man said he was missing a flat-screen television, desktop computer, laptop, two Samsung tablets, two Flip cameras, watches and jewelry, 17 men’s suits, five pairs of Nike shoes, children’s clothing and $700 hidden in a shoebox.
Someone burglarized an apartment in the 200 block of Desplaines during the day Sept. 6 and ransacked the unit, with drawers emptied on the floor and a purse moved from where its owner left it. An iPad and three pricy watches disappeared.
Home invasion
A resident in the 400 block of Hannah Avenue called police around 5:45 a.m. Sept. 5 because he heard someone inside his house on the first floor. Officers arrived and heard the sound of breaking glass and saw a broken window on the front porch with a window blind, a screen, a computer monitor and leather portfolio lying on the porch. Officers saw a 22-year-old man inside the house wearing a ripped shirt with blood on his arms. The man complied when told to lie on the ground with his hands behind his back.
The victim told police his daughter had been sleeping on the couch near the front window when the unknown man began to pound on the glass. The victim grabbed his daughter and wife and ran upstairs to call police. Police took the offender into custody, a 22-year-old Chicago man who appeared intoxicated and claimed he didn’t know where he was.
He was charged with residential burglary and criminal damage to property.
Phone snatcher
Thornton’s video surveillance system captured a customer employees identified as a “semi-regular” who grabbed another customer’s work iPhone which had been set on the coffee counter, slipped the device into a paper bag and covered it with condiments around 5:41 .m. Sept. 6. The phone’s owner called police after it disappeared.
Portillos’s pickpocketing
A woman said her wallet disappeared at Portillo’s, 7740 Roosevelt Road Sept. 6. She told police she and her husband, who walks with a cane, were trying to leave the restaurant when an unknown man and woman “made a scene” outside, blocking the doorway and making it difficult to leave. She said she thought the man had reached into her purse and lifted the wallet. Credit cards were used at Target and Hertz Rent a Car.
Charm school dropouts
Police were summoned to Angelo O’Leary’s, 7522 Madison St., around 1:30 a.m. Sept. 5. Officers were told a woman had flung a beer into the face of the bar tender and she and two friends were outside “giving him their middle fingers.”
A 23-year-old woman from Applegate, Michigan was arrested after video showed the bartender stopping the three from bringing liquor onto the sidewalk. On video she picked up the glass and hurled the liquid into his face. Police charged the woman with disorderly conduct and told the three to stay out of O’Leary’s.
Theft
A UPS package disappeared off the front porch of a house in the 7600 block of Harrison Sept. 2.
In spite of their being chained to the gas pipe on the south side of the structure, a man told police his wife’s bicycles were stolen from a building in the 1400 block of Harlem Avenue overnight Sept. 1-2. Estimated loss was $150.
Another bike was removed from the 7200 block of 15th Street during the day Sept. 7. Value was estimated at $500.
A black leather wallet was missing from the back seat of a Nissan parked overnight in the 300 block of Burkhardt Avenue overnight Sept. 3. Someone used a brick to smash in the driver’s side window.
These items were obtained from the records of the Forest Park Police Department, Aug. 30-Sept. 7, 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.
—Compiled by Jean Lotus
Contact: jean@forestparkreivew
Twitter: @FP_Review
