Pot and loaded gun in briefcase
Riverside police charged a 51-year-old Woodridge man with misdemeanor drug and weapons offenses after a traffic stop on Forest Avenue at Groveland Avenue on April 15.
According to police, the man was driving a pickup truck westbound on East Burlington Street just before noon when he passed two police officers. The officers smelled cannabis coming from the vehicle and pursued the truck as it continued westbound.
During the traffic stop, the driver told police he had cannabis inside a briefcase. He also reportedly pulled from his jacket pocket a magazine clip for a rifle. The clip was loaded with .308-caliber ammunition.
The man also reportedly told police there was a loaded handgun inside his truck. Police found a fully-loaded .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol inside the briefcase next to the cannabis.
The man, who had a FOID card for the gun, said he needed the weapon because he worked in a “rough” neighborhood in Chicago. He told police, he used the cannabis for medical purposes.
Though he had a valid FOID card, police said the man was transporting the weapon in an illegal manner and charged him with unlawful use of a weapon. He was also charged with possession of cannabis.
Riverside Police Chief Thomas Weitzel said the incident illustrates why he opposes concealed-carry legislation.
“If [the alleged offender] had pulled out a handgun, which he had in his vehicle, this situation could have escalated and quickly gotten out of control,” said Weitzel in a press release. “By his own admission, he was just going to display the clip so that officers knew he had the weapon in his possession. However, he never verbally told the officers that he was going to take the clip out of his pocket. This type of unintentional conflict between police and citizens will undoubtedly one day end in a violent encounter.”
Dad charged with sexual abuse
A 40-year-old Bridgeview man has been charged with one count of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and is being held at Cook County Jail on $250,000 bond after his daughter, a North Riverside resident, accused him of inappropriately touching her on April 18.
According to North Riverside police, the daughter informed a social worker at Riverside-Brookfield High School of her father’s behavior on the morning the incident took place. The social worker called the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services and then contacted North Riverside police.
The daughter reportedly told police that her father had touched her inappropriately one other time, two years ago, but she never told anyone about it.
The Landmark is not releasing the name of the man accused, since it would identify the victim.
Getting high in vacant home
Brookfield police wrote local ordinance tickets for criminal trespassing to nine teenagers from Brookfield, LaGrange, LaGrange Park, Lyons and Countryside for occupying a vacant home in the 9100 block of Burlington Avenue on April 20 about 9:30 p.m.
Police were called to the home by someone complaining that a female, accompanied by a small child, had just walked out of the vacant home. When police arrived, they reportedly smelled the odor of burnt cannabis in the house and located the nine teenagers in an upstairs closet.
They also reportedly discovered cannabis on four of the teens. Those carrying the cannabis were also cited for possession of the drug.
Dazed and confused
Brookfield paramedics transported a 48-year-old Cedar Rapids, Iowa, man to the hospital on April 20 just after 5 a.m. after police responded to a home in the 9300 block of Jefferson Avenue to attend to an unwanted subject.
A resident called police, saying there was an unknown man banging on her front door. When police arrived, the man was on the porch. He was, according to police, extremely intoxicated and believed he was in Calumet City. The man said he had been drinking at the residence all night, but the people who lived there said they had never seen the man before.
Theft, battery
Two teenage boys, age 14 and 15, were charged with aggravated battery and theft after they allegedly beat a J.C. Penney security employee who tried to detain them for retail theft on April 21 about 1:30 p.m.
One of the boys elbowed the 45-year-old employee in the head and then both punched the man, causing his left eye to swell shut and cutting his forehead and lip. The boys tried to flee the North Riverside Park Mall on foot, but they were apprehended by police and mall security outside the store.
These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Riverside, North Riverside and Brookfield police departments, April 15-21, 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.
