A man exposed himself during drop-off hours at Garfield Elementary School on Hannah Avenue April 9, police said.
According to Forest Park police, the man stood on the corner of Jackson Boulevard and Hannah Avenue with his hands in his pants and, later, with his shirt off, according to a police report. The Forest Park Police Department also stated that after previous contact with this man, it’s possible he suffers from mental illness. The report does not indicate that they charged or hospitalized him.
“The individual in question is known to suffer from significant mental health challenges. We ask for your understanding and compassion towards the complexity of this situation,” said Jamie Stauder, principal at Garfield, in a statement. “However, the safety of our students and the school community remains our priority.”
Stauder asked parents to call 911 if they or their child sees this man behaving indecently again and said police are considering increased security in the area during pick-up and drop-off times.
Missing teen found after ‘husband’ smashes train window
Police were dispatched to the Forest Park Station of the CTA Blue Line April 9 for a domestic battery. A 24-year-old man and 14-year-old teenager he identified as his “wife” were fighting on the train station platform. The man told police they were fighting earlier in the day and the altercation escalated on the El, resulting in the man kicking and smashing a window on the train, an estimated cost of $5,430.93, according to the police report.
The woman, whom the man said is pregnant, told police that she and the man got in a verbal argument after they saw her ex-boyfriend on the train, then the man smashed her phone. She also provided false names to officers, according to the police report. She was taken to the police department, where she correctly identified herself and was found to be a missing juvenile out of Joliet, police said. The Joliet Police Department was notified.
Arrest on possession of controlled substance
While on patrol April 7, police said they noticed a parked car with tinted windows and temporary registration at Thorntons gas station, and a registration check came up with no record of the vehicle. After the car left, police pulled it over at Wisconsin Avenue and Jackson Boulevard. The driver, 20, had a valid Illinois driver’s license and his front seat passenger, 21, said the car belonged to his cousin. Police confirmed it did, according to their report.
An officer asked to search the car and the driver consented before his passenger immediately told police not to since they didn’t have probable cause. The driver handed an officer a blunt that had been in clear view in the center console and added that there was no other cannabis in the car. Officers asked the two young men in the front seat, plus two passengers in the back, to exit the car. Inside a bag in the car was a pill bottle with the passenger’s name on it, although he didn’t have a prescription for the handful of pills inside. They were suspected to be various Schedule II narcotics. Schedule II narcotics are those that are highly addictive and illegal without a prescription. The passenger was arrested for possession of a controlled substance and the driver was arrested for driving an uninsured car and possession of cannabis in a car outside its approved container.
Arrest on failure to register as a sex offender
On April 8, police were dispatched to Walgreens on the 7200 block of Roosevelt Road on reports of retail theft. A man left the store with a basket of items totaling $214.59 without paying. After an officer approached the young man, he gave the officer his birthday and name, and the information revealed the man was noncompliant for registering as a sex offender with the Kankakee Police Department.
According to the police report, the man told police at the Forest Park Police Department that he lives at a youth homeless shelter in Chicago. He stopped going to the Kankakee Police Department because he doesn’t have a car and, although he said he knows he must register every 90 days, he hasn’t for at least a year. He was arrested for one count of retail theft and one count of failing to register as a sex offender.
These items were obtained from Forest Park Police Department reports dated April 7 through April 9 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.
