The following information was obtained from police reports filed by the North Riverside, Riverside and Brookfield police departments from June 9 through June 19 and represents a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Unless otherwise indicated, anyone named in these reports has only been charged with a crime. The cases have not yet been adjudicated.
Recent efforts by the North Riverside police to increase patrols of Village Commons Park have led to five arrests in two incidents in that area this month.
Deputy Chief of Police Thomas Tauer said that the park, located directly behind the North Riverside municipal complex on Desplaines Avenue, has always been a popular hangout for teenagers, especially after dark when the park is closed.
He said the village has always tried to keep people out of the park after hours, and that police have recently stepped up their bike patrols to better control the area. The police have also asked residents in the area to alert them to anyone they might see in the park after dusk.
The increased attention has gotten results. On June 9, police responding to a call from a resident, found a group of four people in the park at about 11 p.m. Tauer said it was later discovered that two of them, Esteban Ramirez, 19, and Daniel Solano, 19, both of Cicero, had outstanding warrants for their arrest. Ramirez was wanted for failing to appear in court on charges of underage drinking, and Solano was wanted for failing to appear in court on a charge of marijuana possession. Both were taken into custody.
Another member of the group, a 17-year-old woman, was found to be listed as a missing juvenile, although Tauer said he believed that was an outdated case that simply hadn’t been erased from the computer system.
In the second incident, police arrested three men in the park for underage drinking on June 15. Two of the men, Orlando Morales, 17, of North Riverside, and Alberto Ramirez, 17, of Berwyn, were given misdemeanor citations for underage drinking. Tauer said the third person, a 16-year-old from Berwyn, was petitioned to juvenile court.
Failure to yield
? A 12-year-old Brookfield boy struck by a car on June 14 is doing well, according to the boy’s father. According to police, the boy was riding his bike northbound on Maple Avenue and turned west at the south crosswalk at Grant Avenue, when he was struck by a car traveling northbound on Maple Avenue driven by 54-year-old LaGrange Park resident Edward J. Eldridge.
The report indicated that the boy was thrown off his bike and into the windshield of the car. He was taken to Loyola Medical Center, where he received stitches for a minor head wound. The boy’s father said his son’s knee was also injured in the crash.
Eldridge reportedly told police he never saw the cyclist look back toward oncoming traffic before turning westbound. He was cited for failing to yield to the cyclist, who was in the crosswalk.
Domestic battery
? Lyons resident Gueorgui Arnaoudov, 20, was charged with domestic battery after allegedly battering his girlfriend, a Riverside resident, just after 7:30 p.m. on June 17. Police reported that the victim walked into the police station lobby to make the complaint, and that she had scratch marks on her chest and neck. She was treated by paramedics; Arnaoudov was arrested at the woman’s Riverside residence.
Zero tolerance
? Riverside police charged 20-year-old Lindsay Vacek, of Riverside, under the state’s zero tolerance statute for anyone under the age of 21 suspected of drinking and driving after the car she was driving left the road way and struck a tree in the 100 block of Woodside Road at 4 a.m. on June 19.
Police reported that they found several empty beer cans outside her vehicle when they arrived on the scene and that Vacek passed some field sobriety tests, but failed others. She refused to take a breath test at the police station. She was also cited for improper lane usage, failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, damage to village property and unlawful consumption of alcohol by a minor.
Criminal damage
? Sometime in the overnight hours of June 13-14, someone smashed out the rear windshield of a Dodge Caravan parked in the 3300 block of Maple Avenue, Brookfield.
? Sometime in the overnight hours of June 17-18, someone use a beer bottle to smash out the side window of a Chevy conversion van parked in the 4000 block of Vernon Avenue, Brookfield.
?”Jessica Glowinski and Bob Uphues
