A 42-year-old Berwyn man is dead of an apparent heroin overdose and a 24-year-old Brookfield woman stands charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of drug paraphernalia and obstructing police after allegedly trying to hide evidence of the man’s drug use from police.
Jamie M. Trzinski remains in Cook County Jail awaiting an Aug. 3 court date at Maybrook with her bail set at $10,000.
Trzinski called paramedics to her apartment in the 4600 block of Grove Avenue just prior to noon on July 26, reporting that her friend, Thomas W. Tomasek, had stopped breathing.
According to the police report, Trzinski said she had known Tomasek for just a couple of months and that she picked him up at his Berwyn home and drove back to Brookfield, where she was babysitting her roommate’s two children.
Tomasek went into the bathroom and remained there for 15 minutes. When Trzinski went to check on him, she got no response. She opened the door to find Tomasek hunched over on his knees. His face was blue and he wasn’t responding.
When emergency personnel arrived, they reported no signs of drugs or paraphernalia. Tomasek was taken to LaGrange Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 12:28 p.m.
Just prior to leaving the scene, however, police learned there was a black handbag in the clothes dryer of the laundry room. Inside the bag, police reported finding several capped and uncapped syringes, empty tinfoil packets and plastic bags containing heroin residue and other items consistent with heroin use.
In a subsequent interview with police, Trzinski reportedly admitted that when she opened the bathroom door, she found Tomasek hunched over his knees and that he had a syringe sticking out of his left arm.
She reportedly took the needle out of his arm when she called 911, threw the rest of the items in the black handbag and then tossed it into the dryer before police and paramedics arrived because she was scared and didn’t want to get into trouble.
Trzinski reportedly told police that while she knew Tomasek was a drug user, she didn’t know he had drugs on him that day.
Public indecency
Berwyn resident Joel Sanchez, 50, faces three counts of public indecency after allegedly exposing himself and masturbating in front of three teenage girls who were shopping at Kohl’s, 2200 Harlem Ave. in North Riverside on July 28.
According to police, three 14-year-old girls from Stickney were in the cosmetics department when they noticed a balding, middle-aged man standing in the women’s department, holding a shirt to his side.
While they were looking at the man, he reportedly exposed himself to the girls and was seen masturbating as he walked toward them. The girls ran away and reported the incident.
The man was gone by the time police arrived, but an officer stopped a man matching the offender’s description, later identified as Sanchez, nearby. Berwyn police also responded to the scene, reporting that they had two similar complaints that day at stores in Cermak Plaza, just across Harlem Avenue from Kohl’s.
The girls positively identified Sanchez as the man they saw inside the store, according to police. He remains in Cook County Jail with bail set at $20,000. He has an Aug. 10 court date at Maybrook.
More AC units heisted
About a half-dozen large central air-conditioning condenser units have been stolen from the rear yards of properties in North Riverside during the past month or so. Until recently, the units were taken from unoccupied homes, but last week police learned that commercial properties are also a target.
On July 27, a supervisor for a business located in the 8400 block of 26th Street reported to police that two units were taken from the north side of the building.
In Riverside between 5 p.m., July 30, and 8 a.m. on Aug. 1, two of the four large condenser units were taken from behind the commercial building at 51 E. Burlington St.
And in Brookfield on July 31, a resident of the 3600 block of Forest Avenue reported that during the night, someone had stolen a valve from her air-conditioning unit and one from her neighbor’s unit.
Jealousy leads to battery
Riverside police charged Lyons resident Steven Morez, 39, with domestic battery and criminal damage to property after he reportedly kicked in the door of a townhome in the 300 block of East Burlington Street and attacked a 32-year-old man inside the residence, punching him in the face and biting his arm.
Police said Morez went to the residence, which belongs to his 35-year-old girlfriend, on July 26 at 12:20 a.m. after he found out the other man was there.
These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Riverside, North Riverside and Brookfield police departments, July 24-31, 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 Bob Uphues
