A man who stepped off the platform and in front of a Metra express train in downtown Riverside on March 7 reportedly had been released earlier that day from a hospital where he’d been taken after an incident last month in Lyons.
On Feb. 25, Arthur C. Smith IV, 49, of Stickney, was taken to MacNeal Hospital by Lyons paramedics, who were called to Ogden Avenue to treat a “distraught individual.”
At that time, Smith reportedly told emergency personnel that he wanted to kill himself by jumping in front of a train. Paramedics took him to MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn, where he remained until March 7 at 1:30 p.m., when he was released.
Police say Smith walked from the hospital directly to the Riverside train station, where he wrote a suicide note before stepping in front of the train about 2:50 p.m.
Vehicle break-in
A 52-year-old Riverside woman contacted police on March 19, the day after someone reportedly entered her unlocked vehicle, which was parked in the lot of Brookfield Village Hall, 8820 Brookfield Ave., and removed paperwork related to an election campaign. Village hall is an early voting site.
The paperwork did not contain voter information, according to police. Rather it included information about volunteers and assignments for Election Day.
Email scam
A 70-year-old Brookfield woman was conned out of $5,000 by someone who apparently hacked into her computer and then used an email address that was very similar to her daughter’s to ask for money.
The victim told police that she’d been emailing back and forth with her daughter about home renovation projects her daughter was doing on March 13 about 10 a.m. Four hours later, she received an email that she believed was from her daughter.
The email requested $5,000 for a “purchase” and instructed the victim to go to the nearest Wells Fargo bank and deposit the money into a specific account. The victim did as instructed and then notified her daughter that the money had been transferred.
When the victim’s daughter said she hadn’t asked for any money, the victim examined the email more closely and noticed that one letter in the email address was different from her daughter’s.
The emailer followed up about transferring an additional $4,500. The victim did not do that, but instead notified police, her bank and the Wells Fargo Bank in Westchester where the money transfer had taken place.
Fleeing and eluding
A 19-year-old Chicago man faces felony fleeing and eluding charges after leading North Riverside police on a chase that ended when he crashed his Pontiac into a garage in a Berwyn alley about 12:45 a.m. on March 11.
The chase started shortly after a North Riverside police officer pulled the car over for having just one working headlight in the 2100 block of Harlem Avenue. As the officer tried to speak with the driver, identified as Omarr T. Fisher, he allegedly pulled away and sped off, at one point becoming airborne while in an alley near Cermak and Wisconsin in Berwyn.
Fisher reportedly crashed the car into a garage behind the 7000 block of 16th Street and was apprehended shortly after fleeing the scene on foot. In addition to aggravated fleeing and eluding, police charged Fisher with multiple traffic citations, including one for reckless driving.
DUI suspect 74 mph on Ogden
A 25-year-old Westchester man, charged with drunken driving on March 15 just after midnight, was driving a 2006 Chevy sedan 74 mph in a 30 mph zone while westbound on Ogden Avenue from Harlem Avenue in Riverside, according to police.
According to a police report, the driver was combative and verbally insulting to police. As police arrived at the station and were walking him into the police station, a man pulled into the police parking lot, got out of his car and allegedly ran toward police, stating they could not arrest his friend.
When police told the unidentified man to back off, he drove away in his vehicle, reportedly yelling that he would be back. The alleged drunk driver was able to bond out later that morning.
Blaming the Masons
Brookfield police sent a 65-year-old man on his way on March 7 at 9:15 a.m., after he reportedly caused a disturbance in the council room of Brookfield Village Hall, where early voting was taking place.
An election judge told police the man came into the polling place and started talking about how Freemasons controlled elections. When the election judge disagreed, the man reportedly got upset, accused the election judge of lying, and refused to leave when asked.
Police told the man he was free to vote but not to cause any more problems. The man reportedly told police he does not vote and left without further incident.
These items were obtained from police reports filed by the Riverside, North Riverside and Brookfield police departments, March 7-19, 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
