Forest Park will soon have two more license plate readers. One will be near the intersection of Harlem Avenue and Randolph Street, and the other will be at Harlem Avenue and Washington Boulevard.
Unanimously approved at the June 9 village council meeting, the license plate readers will scan plates and alert Forest Park police when they identify a car that is stolen or associated with a person of interest. They are funded by a $37,645 grant from the Illinois Office of the Attorney General for the 2026 fiscal year and will be overseen by the Forest Park Police Department.
The grant also includes $3,000 for an overtime detail, where officers can sign up for a shift in addition to their usual eight-hour workdays.
In 2022, Forest Park installed four license plate readers at the intersections of Harlem and Roosevelt, Harlem and Madison, Desplaines and Roosevelt, and First and Roosevelt.
In September, the village’s police department was awarded another grant from the Illinois Office of the Attorney General. That $12,758 funded three cameras to photograph evidence recovered from retail thefts. It also funded $5,000 worth of overtime pay for officers to monitor the Forest Park Dollar Tree, Walgreens and Walmart – areas identified as having a high amount of retail theft.
The most recent Attorney General grant that Forest Park received will run from July 1 through June 2026.
Correction, June 11 at 1 p.m.: A previous version of the story gave incorrect details regarding the cameras purchased with last year’s grant from the Illinois Office of Attorney General. They were handheld digital cameras. We apologize for the error.