A Lyft driver who picked up a passenger on the 400 block Beloit Avenue got his car shot at for his trouble.
The victim said he went to pick up a fare on April 28 at 1:44 a.m. He saw the passenger argue with another man. After the passenger got into the vehicle, the other man pulled out a handgun and fired. Fearful, the victim drove west on Madison Street and called the police from near the Harlem/Lake CTA station.
By that point, police had received phone calls from several neighbors about gun shots. Officers drove up to Harlem/Lake to interview the victim. During the course of the interview, the passenger interrupted and told the officers that they needed to go back to Beloit Avenue. He declined to cooperate with the investigation, booking an Uber and driving off. The victim was unable to provide the passenger information to the police.
The police recovered eight shell casings from the scene. A witness said that he saw the shooter flee through the alley on the south side of Madison Street.
The security camera pointing at Constitution Court didn’t capture the incident.
Walmart scammed
A Forest Park Walmart employee who believed she was taking orders from the chain’s corporate headquarters cost the company $25,806.
On April 23, at around 5:37 p.m., an employee received a call that came up on caller ID as “Home Office.” The man on the other end of the line said he was calling from the Walmart Home Office, and that he needed her to run an update on the cash register equipment. To do that, the scammer claimed he needed the employee to activate a store gift card, put $432.11 on it and give him the card security code. He then had the employee repeat this with 83 more gift cards.
The scammer ended up with $35,865 before the real Walmart corporate office flagged the suspicious spike in transactions. While it was able to reverse $10,059 in transactions, the rest was lost.
Walmart corporate security has launched a “major investigation” of the incident, and the Forest Park Walmart will press charges if the culprit is found.
Theft from vehicle
A thief broke into a Circle Avenue home garage, but he only stole a scooter stored in the back of the car.
The victim parked her black 2015 Kia Sorrento in the garage on April 23 at around 5 p.m. Her son’s electric scooter happened to be stored in the back. When the victim checked the car the following morning, she discovered that someone broke her car’s rear window and took the scooter out. The victim then realized that the side garage door was open, but nothing else was stolen from the garage.
These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Forest Park Police Department, April 23-29, 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
