North Riverside police arrested eight people last week after license-plate reader cameras alerted officers to three stolen vehicles entering the grounds of the North Riverside Park Mall, 7501 Cermak Road.

  • On May 22, three people, including a 19-year-old woman from Plainfield, a 19-year-old man from Glenview and an 18-year-old man from Evanston, were charged with misdemeanor criminal trespass to a motor vehicle after arriving at the mall around 4:30 p.m. in a 2015 Toyota Rav-4 that had been reported stolen out of Niles on May 17.

Police located the vehicle near the food court entrance and arrested the trio inside Pandora, a shop at the mall. The 18-year-old reportedly was wanted on a warrant for failure to appear in court on an unrelated possession of a stolen motor vehicle charge.

  • North Riverside police charged a 17-year-old Elmwood Park girl with possession of a stolen motor vehicle, fleeing and eluding and having no valid driver’s license after officers blocked the stolen Hyundai Elantra she was driving in the parking lot of Chick-fil-A, 7201 Cermak Road on March 23 at about 7:20 p.m.

A license plate reader camera at the 25th Street entrance to North Riverside Park Mall alerted police that the stolen car had entered the mall parking lot. An officer spotted the vehicle and attempted to stop it, but the driver sped off northbound before turning onto eastbound Cermak Road and then into the Chick-fil-A parking lot.

  • On May 25 at about 4:25 p.m., police charged four people, two of them with felonies, after a license plater reader camera alerted them to a stolen Jeep Grand Cherokee entering the mall property from Cermak Road.

Police located the Jeep near Entrance 4, observing the passenger side rear window broken out and covered with tape. Inside the mall, police located four people seen on surveillance video exiting the Jeep and announced they were under arrest. Three of the suspects took off running, while the fourth was taken into custody.

The other three were taken into custody a short time later, and police recovered a key fob belonging to the Jeep.

According to police, Robert Johnson, 19, of Chicago, had a loaded .40-caliber pistol tucked into his waistband at the time of his arrest. He was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, criminal trespass to a motor vehicle and resisting arrest.  Police charged Dionta Fields, 20, of Chicago, with possession of a stolen motor vehicle and resisting arrest. 

In addition, police charged two 17-year-old boys, one with criminal trespass to a motor vehicle and one with criminal trespass to a motor vehicle and resisting arrest.

Stolen check fraudulently cashed

Brookfield police say it’s likely they’ll be turning over a check fraud case to U.S. Postal Service investigators after a local man’s Social Security check totaling more than $8,000 was stolen and cashed by someone else.

A Colorado woman called police on May 22 to report that someone had stolen her 76-year-old father’s Social Security check for $8,324, which had been mailed to his last known address in the 9300 block of Ogden Avenue in April. Her father had since moved to Colorado.

According to the police report, someone cashed the check at a Chase Bank branch in Berwyn on April 24. Police have been working with Chase, so far without success, to try to obtain surveillance video of the transaction to try and identify the person who cashed the check.

Car stolen – then returned

A car reported stolen overnight on May 21-22 in Brookfield mysteriously reappeared on the driveway from which it was taken – with a spare tire on one wheel – about an hour after the vehicle was discovered missing.

A resident of the 4300 block of Forest Avenue called police at about 9:20 a.m. on May 22 to report the car stolen from the driveway. There were no signs of forced entry, but police learned a license-plate reading camera had observed the car on Pershing Road in Stickney at about 9:30 a.m. A short time later, the car was observed by another camera near Plainfield Road and Custer Avenue.

By 10:30 a.m. the car was parked on the driveway again, but the victims said they had no idea who returned it. There was a spare tire, which had not been there before, on the rear driver’s side axle. The original tire, which had sidewall damage, was located in the rear of the vehicle.

Police provided the victims with a steering wheel lock for the vehicle to prevent a future theft.

These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Riverside, North Riverside and Brookfield police departments, May 22-26, 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