Asleep at the wheel, foot on the brake
Riverside police arrested a 33-year-old Stickney man on Aug. 28 around 3 a.m. for driving under the influence after he fell asleep at the wheel of his car, which was southbound on Harlem Avenue near the Burlington Northern Railroad crossing, 3300 S. Harlem Ave. Officers, according to an Aug. 28 Riverside Police Department press release, noticed the “crossing gates were up and the train had cleared.” They watched two complete traffic cycles and the car did not move.
When an officer approached the car, he saw “the driver’s head was slumped down on the steering wheel but the car was in gear and the engine was running with his foot on the brake.”
The officer knocked on the window several times. The man did not wake up and the officer began to “pound and strike the window.” Eventually, the officer had to open the door and physically shake the man awake.
In 2013, the same man had been arrested by Riverside officers who found him “completely passed out” behind the wheel of his car on the 100 block of Riverside Road.
Theft
A 22-year-old employee at 7-11, Harlem Avenue and 26th Street in Riverside, told Riverside police a man and a woman came into the store around 2 a.m. on Aug. 24 wanting to buy two cases of Modelo beer, which cost about $46. The employee said he told the pair that alcohol sales weren’t allowed at that time and tried to block them from leaving the store. The woman reportedly “placed a 20-dollar bill on the counter” before leaving in a white BMW. The store employee gave the car’s license plate number to Riverside officers.
Three women reportedly took $20 worth of sandwiches from 7-11, 2600 S. Harlem Ave. in Riverside, on Aug. 21 around 3 p.m., according to a store employee. The three women did not display any weapons and, according to the employee, all “they did was take the sandwiches and run out the door.” There is video of the incident. The employee tried to get a license plate number of the womens’ black Pontiac parked outside but the car did not have plates.
Unwanted subject
A Metra conductor called Riverside police to 20 E. Quincy St. on Aug. 23 around 4:30 p.m., asking the officers to remove a woman from the train. The conductor reportedly asked the woman to put her shoes on. She had taken them off, which is against Metra rules. The women then reportedly asked the conductor, “Are you going to shoot me? … Do you have a gun?”
Officers asked the woman to step off the train, which then left the station. She told officers she didn’t feel safe and said she felt they were going to hurt her. She refused to give officers her name. She then boarded the next Metra train.
A 22-year-old Brookfield man called police to the 3500 block of Prairie Avenue on Aug. 21 around 1:45 a.m. saying there was an “unknown male subject in his backyard threatening to fight him.” Officers spotted the man, a 22-year-old Hodgkins resident, in the side yard, who said he had been upstairs drinking with the caller and another 21-year-old man. The caller denied this and said he didn’t know the 22-year-old and wanted him to leave. According to the police report, both “parties were observed to be highly intoxicated.” No arrest was made and at no point was there a physical confrontation.
Brotherly unlove
Brookfield police came to a home on the 4600 block of DuBois in Brookfield around 12:30 a.m. on Aug. 25 after a 25-year-old man called officers when his 29-year-old sibling reportedly shoved him and “grabbed him by the neck.” The brothers then “wrestled” on the basement floor before their mother called from upstairs to stop fighting. The younger brother then called the police.
The older brother said his younger brother “instigated the argument.”
“Due to conflicting accounts of what occurred, the lack of witness testimony, and both subjects’ willingness to stay apart,” no arrest was made.
Mistaken Brawl
A 50-year-old Brookfield woman called the police after she saw four men fighting at the corner of Shields Avenue and Raymond Avenue in Brookfield around 7:30 p.m. on Aug. 24. Police came and saw four men on the parkway. The group, who are reportedly all friends, told officers they had been at a golf outing earlier in Cicero and had come back to one of the men’s father’s house to drink. The group eventually began “horse playing and wrestling.” Officers warned the men to “not engage in disruptive behavior or public drinking of alcohol.”
Driving diabetic-ly
A 58-year-old Burbank man was stopped, Aug. 21 around 8 a.m., near the intersection of Shields and Eberly Avenue after he was observed “driving erratically” and ignoring traffic controls. Officers, according to the police report, saw the driver’s “glassy eyes and heard him “slurring his speech heavily.” The man told officers he was a diabetic. After giving the man “medication” from an ambulance that arrived on scene, his speech returned to normal.
These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Riverside, North Riverside and Brookfield police departments, Aug. 21-27, 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
