Three men entered Cardinal Liquors store with guns drawn, emptying the cash registers, and robbing several customers.
Store security footage showed the trio Nov. 21 at 9:01 p.m. They ordered the customers inside to get on the ground. One man went behind the counter and told the store manager to open the cash registers. The manager estimates that, together, the four cash registers held over $1,000.
Another robber went around the store, patting down customers and demanding their belongings, while the third acted as a lookout. He robbed three customers in total, stealing wallets from two customers and a wallet with $20 in cash, debit and credit cards and a phone from a third. He also robbed one of the Cardinal Liquors employees, stealing $200 in cash.
After the first robber emptied the cash registers, the trio fled, with the camera capturing them running north, and then east through the alley.
The stolen phone was pinged to the 1300 block of Euclid Avenue in Berwyn, but it’s not clear whether the phone was recovered. The Forest Park Police Department also received a report of a similar liquor store robbery, which may have involved the trio, taking place in Chicago’s 25th Police District.
Mail carrier robbed
A mail carrier was held up near Field-Stevenson Elementary School, on the 900 block of Beloit Avenue, the afternoon of Nov. 25.
The carrier reported that, around 3:45 p.m., a man came up from behind and said he didn’t want to hurt him. When the carrier turned around, he saw a man wearing a white face mask and had his jacket hood pulled over his head. The man put his hand over his right pocket, implying he had a gun, but the victim didn’t actually see a weapon. The man demanded that the victim hand over his USPS master key, and he complied. The man then fled the scene, running south on Beloit Avenue and turning west on Harvard Street.
Police officers searched the area. While the incident may have been captured on Field-Stevenson security cameras, and the security cameras at Ed’s Way grocery store may have captured the robber, the footage wasn’t available at the time of the report.
Identity Theft
A man learned the hard way that someone used his personal information to create a fake driver’s license, used that license to rent a U-Haul truck, and didn’t return it.
On Nov. 20, the victim got a call from the U-Haul location at the corner of Harlem Avenue and Harrison Street, demanding that he return a truck past due. The victim hadn’t rented a U-Haul, so he went to the location to figure out what happened. He found out that, on Nov. 18, a man used a driver’s license that had all of the victim’s information, except the photo and height and weight, and rented a truck for one day.
The victim said he had no idea how the identity thief got his personal information.
These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Forest Park Police Department, Nov. 20-26, 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