A 54-year-old woman from Hodgkins drank a $1.97 bottle of Snapple on Aug. 16 around 4:20 p.m. inside a Mobile gas station store on the 9100 block of Ogden in Brookfield and left without paying. A store employee reportedly confronted the woman after she drank the beverage in the store. The woman reportedly then placed the bottle on the counter and walked out without paying. She later told police, who found her in the station’s parking lot, that she was planning on paying for it, but forgot “the correct debit/credit card.” The employee did not press charges. 

Theft

Someone stole a Jami Coda sport bike from inside a parked 2010 Jeep Wrangler on the 4600 block of Custer Avenue in Brookfield. The theft happened sometime between 5:30 p.m. on Aug. 14 and 6:40 a.m. on Aug. 15. The car’s 37-year-old owner told police he was unloading groceries and didn’t lock the car. There were no signs of forced entry. 

Attempted suicide

Police responded to a call from an 18-year-old woman on Aug. 17 around 11 p.m. for a 46-year-old “suicidal subject” armed with a shotgun on the 8900 block of Cermak Road in North Riverside. Police surrounded the apartment building and tried calling the man multiple times. By that time, the 18-year-old caller was outside.

The caller’s mother was in the apartment at the time but later came out to speak with police. Other building tenants were successfully evacuated from the building. Police eventually entered the building and the man was taken into custody at about midnight, and sent to Loyola Hospital.

Police recovered a handgun, rifle, shotgun, 17 “edged weapons,” and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition from a safe inside the apartment. The 46-year-old man had a Firearms Owners’ Identification card (FOID). According to the incident report, police have begun the process to revoke the card. 

Criminal defacement

Police responded, Aug. 18, to reports of vulgar graffiti, which included explicit language, on several garages on the 2300 block of Hainsworth Avenue in North Riverside.  

Battery 

A 32-year-old Riverside man has been charged with one count of domestic battery after allegedly hitting his 34-year-old wife on Aug. 19 around 7:30 a.m. The couple reportedly had a party for their son that day.

When the woman woke her husband up to “help clean,” he reportedly hit her “many” times “in the face both with open hand and closed fist.” The man told police when his wife woke him up to clean, he told her he wanted to sleep and would do it later.

At that point, the man said, his wife “broke a glass and began to scratch him and slapped him.” He said he hit her only after she struck him. Officers saw scratches on the man’s face and arms. Officers also saw redness on the woman’s face and “small lacerations” in her mouth. 

Mistaken bike identity

A 35-year-old Riverside woman told Riverside police on Aug. 19 around 1 p.m. that she believed she had found her daughter’s stolen Schwinn bike locked up at the North Riverside Mall. The theft occurred sometime between 2 and 8 p.m. on Aug. 18. There were “several marks” on the bike, the report says, that made her “positive” it was her daughter’s bike. 

Riverside officers told the woman they would cut the lock and hold the bike for her until 

she could prove ownership. She also agreed to pay for the cost of the lock if it turned out to not be her daughter’s. 

Later on Aug. 19, around 3 p.m. a 17-year-old teenager who works at the North Riverside Mall came into the police station after watching security footage of Riverside officers taking her bike. The teen and her father came into the station and provided “photographed copies of the sales receipt” for the cut lock, valued at $25, and a “full description of the bicycle.” The bike was then given to the pair. The woman later dropped off $25 for the cost of the cut lock. 

These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Riverside, North Riverside and Brookfield police departments, Aug. 16-20, 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 Thomas Vogel