A man driving a black 2016 Lexus followed a woman driving south on Harlem Avenue and pulled a gun on her when he caught up with her at Thorntons gas station, 601 S. Harlem Ave.

The incident happened on April 19. The victim said that, at around 11:08 a.m., she approached Jackson Boulevard when she saw the Lexus “begin to tailgate her.” Concerned, the victim pulled into the gas station. The Lexus followed and pulled up alongside her. The driver yelled at the victim and pointed a semi-automatic handgun at her. The driver then fled south on Harlem Avenue. 

The police officers saw the car drive onto the Eisenhower Expressway eastbound ramp and gave chase, but didn’t catch him.

Burglary

A tenant living in an apartment on Van Buren Street came home on April 22 at 10:05 a.m. to discover that his apartment had been burglarized. 

The victim found his bedroom window open, with the screen cut and placed off to the side. He found that an Xbox and four video games were missing, an Amazon Fire TV stick was missing from his TV set and an envelope with rent money was missing from his kitchen drawer. 

The police officer investigating the scene was able to take multiple fingerprints from the bedroom window, but the police had no suspect at the time of the report. 

Catalytic converter thefts

Forest Park saw two catalytic converter thefts on the afternoon of April 20.

The first theft took place at the Proviso Math & Science Academy, 8601 Roosevelt Rd. At around 12:24 p.m., a teacher saw three men in the process of stealing the catalytic converter from a 2012 Toyota Prius parked in the school parking lot. He asked students to call the police as he ran towards the car. The thieves spotted him and got into a black Infiniti with the catalytic converter in tow and drove off, heading east on Roosevelt Road. 

Meanwhile, the owner of a beige 2010 Toyota Prius parked his car on the 1300 block of Desplaines Avenue at 12:30 p.m. When he returned an hour later, he heard a “really loud noise” coming from the car and took it to Elite Tire to have it checked. The check revealed that the catalytic converter was stolen. 

Another catalytic converter theft took place on the night of April 22 at Currie Motors dealership, 8401 Roosevelt Rd. A security camera captured the suspect arriving at the dealership at 2:03 a.m., getting out and going to a black 2022 Mitsubishi Outlander, and leaving with a catalytic converter one minute later.

A traffic camera spotted what was potentially the suspect’s vehicle turning north on 1st Avenue from Roosevelt Road.

Fraud

A Chase Bank customer was tricked into giving her account information to a thief posing as a fraud prevention officer, who used it to steal $4,370 from her account.

On April 19, at around 9:04 a.m., the victim got a text message claiming that someone made an authorized purchase at Target. She got a call from a man who claimed to be a Chase Bank representative, saying that he wanted to help her secure her account and asking her for her social security number. The victim did but didn’t realize anything was amiss until someone used the Zelle money transfer service to send $2,800 to her brother and $2,090 to her co-worker. When they tried to send the money back, the money didn’t make it to the victim’s account. 

The real Chase fraud department is investigating the incident.

These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Forest Park Police Department, April 19-22, 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