A man who thought someone accidentally rear-ended him ended up getting carjacked.
The victim was driving his black 2019 Dodge Durango on April 12 at 1:43 a.m., heading east on Harvard Street. As he approached Harlem Avenue, a dark grey sedan rear-ended his vehicle. The victim got out of his car to exchange insurance information with the other driver when a man wearing a ski mask, blue jacket and black sweatpants got out of the passenger side of the sedan and demanded the victim’s car keys.
The victim said he wasn’t sure whether the carjacker had a weapon, but he gave the masked man his keys because he believed the other man had one. The carjacker got into the victim’s vehicle, made a U-turn and drove west on Harvard Street. The sedan followed the stolen vehicle.
The victim immediately called 911. He said that his wallet was left in the car.
Theft of violin
A pair of customers stole another customer’s violin from the American Music World store, 7655 Roosevelt Rd., after trying it out.
While the security camera footage showed the theft taking place on April 7 at around 2:45 p.m., the store employee didn’t discover the theft until the morning of April 15.
The victim dropped off the violin at the store to get a crack on the instrument’s tailpiece repaired. The security video showed two men entering the store a short time later. One of the men uses the violin to test out a few bows before buying one bow, paying in cash. The man placed the bow in the violin case and, “when the opportunity presented itself,” picked up the case with the bow and the violin and exited the store. His companion followed. The two got into an SUV parked in front of the store and headed west on Roosevelt Road.
The store employee said that he wasn’t sure how much the violin was worth, but he estimated it to be between $2,000 and $4,000.
Catalytic converter thefts
Forest Park saw catalytic converters stolen from two separate Mitsubishi Outlanders last week.
The first theft took place on April 12. The victim, a Proviso Mathematics & Science Academy student, drove his black 2015 Mitsubishi Outlander to school, parking it at around 8:30 a.m. When he went to drive home at around 3:30 p.m., he realized that someone had removed his car’s catalytic converter.
Another theft took place on Elgin Avenue overnight on April 13-14. The block where the theft took place was completely redacted from the report. The victim normally parks her grey 2016 Mitsubishi Outlander in her garage, but on that particular night, she parked it in front of her home.
These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Forest Park Police Department, April 10-15, and represent a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Unless otherwise indicated, anybody named in these reports has only been charged with a crime. These cases have not been adjudicated.
Compiled by Igor Studenkov
