Structure fires ablaze on Washington and Randolph
On March 18, police responded to 7432 Washington St., where a fire was addressed by crews from Forest Park, River Forest, Oak Park, North Riverside and Berwyn. Firefighters forced entry into several fourth-floor units to evacuate residents and assess how far the fire had spread. The resident who lived in the unit where the fire started told police he didn’t know how it happened.
On March 20, police responded to 7251 Randolph St. after several calls about smoke in the third-floor hallway. As the Forest Park Fire Department prepared to make entry into a unit with a charred door, police officers knocked on the building’s other doors and helped evacuate multiple residents and their pets. The local department, plus those from Oak Park and River Forest, put out the fire and determined it came from the unit’s kitchen. Several other units were damaged by smoke, water, or broken doors and windows, according to the police report. The couple who owns the unit told police the fire was likely started by a stick of sage that was left lit.
Aggravated unlawful use of weapon
While on patrol March 17, police noticed a car without registration and pulled it over in the 1500 block of Harlem Avenue. Police smelled cannabis coming from the car, and the woman who was driving confirmed that there was some inside the vehicle. Police asked everyone in the car to step out, including two male passengers and two other unnamed passengers. Upon searching the car, police found two handguns, one underneath the driver’s seat and one under the front passenger seat. According to police, none of the car’s occupants had Firearm Owners Identification or a Concealed Carry License. Police cited the woman for violating Illinois vehicle code and released her from the police department, along with one of the male passengers. The other man was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, since the guns in the front seat were accessible to him, and possession of cannabis outside its approved container – which was located near him in the car.
Aggravated assault
On March 23, police were dispatched to 7610 Madison Street for a suspicious incident. An Uber driver told officers that he got a notification to pick up and drop off a package. According to the police report, while he was waiting on Marengo Street to pick up the package, a woman dressed in black approached the driver’s side door of his car, gave him a bag and pointed a gun at him while saying “you better deliver this.” The man then called police, who found suspect cocaine in the bag the woman gave the man. No one has been charged.
Battery
Police arrived at the Dollar Tree at 7709 Roosevelt Road on March 19. A customer told police that he was shopping and asked an employee where the toilet paper was. He added that he couldn’t understand the employee and asked her to repeat herself twice, resulting in the woman yelling at him and asking if he was deaf.
The man went to go find the toilet paper and the woman followed. She told police she was angry after the man called her “lady,” and the man said she struck him in the chest. The woman told police she followed the man because she thought he might be stealing and didn’t remember if she touched him. She checked out his items and the man left the store before calling police. At the time the police report was created, officers were checking with Dollar Tree management for video surveillance footage and no one had been charged.
On March 20, police responded to a Lyft driver on Roosevelt Road who said he picked up two people who started physically fighting. The driver told police she picked up a man and woman from Loyola Hospital. According to the police report, the couple started arguing in the car, then the man hit and kicked the woman multiple times, and the woman told the driver to call the police. Upon arriving at the Roosevelt Road building that the driver dropped them off at, police heard arguing coming from a second-floor unit. When police attempted to make contact with those in the unit, the unit’s lights turned off and the arguing stopped. When police gained access to the unit, they found a woman with red marks and bruising on her face and the man who the Lyft driver positively identified. Police took the man into custody and charged him with one count of domestic battery.
These items were obtained from Forest Park Police Department reports dated March 17 through March 23 and represent a portion of the incidents to which police responded. Anyone named in these reports has only been charged with a crime and cases have not yet been adjudicated. We report the race of a suspect only when a serious crime has been committed, the suspect is still at large, and police have provided us with a detailed physical description of the suspect as they seek the public’s help in making an arrest.
