FIRST and foremost, we'd like to take the time to welcome back home La Grange Police Officer Steve Kneifel, who has spent the past nine months from his deployment with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan.
Steve, who arrived home to take care of his wife and family a week or two ago, has been busy tending to family matters, but was back in action serving La Grange this week. His wife is ill and we wish her the best in her treatment and recovery.
The Police Department is giving him a big Welcome Home celebration with a party on Friday, Sept. 11 at the Robert Coulter American Legion Post in La Grange.
Stay tuned to this site for details.
In the meantime, anyone who would like to volunteer with the arrangements (or contribute food or provisions) is asked to call Police Chief Mike Holub or Jane Coleman at (708) 579-2333.
Now on to (less) important things, namely this week's police blotter:
There's been a spate of car burglaries, bicycle thefts and odd goings-on in La Grange including people hearing footsteps in their (haunted?) houses and one lady who claims hundreds of men are headed to town to get her. Oh well, the day in the life of a cop.
An employee of the Balkan Bakery (which we didn't even know existed), 541 S. La Grange Road, arrived for work shortly before 4 a.m. Sept. 2 to find the front door window busted. No entry was gained.
A 60-year-old resident in the 800 block of South Catherine Avenue reported to police that after she turned off her television for the night and headed to bed at about 11:45 p.m. Sept. 1, she heard footsteps on the second floor of her house. Police responded and found nothing disturbed.
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However, oddly enough, a vehicle was burglarized, also in the 800 block of South Catherine, in the overnight hours of Aug. 31 and Sept. 1. The car was rifled through and change was stolen. Another vehicle, a Chevy Suburban, was burglarized as it was parked on the night of Aug. 28 in the 900 block of South Waiola Avenue.
Yet, even more strange were the claims of a 39-year-old woman in the 300 block of South Stone Avenue, who reported at 1:50 p.m. Aug. 31 that she heard footsteps in the upstairs of her house. Police again found no signs of entry and nothing disturbed.
A boy's red felt Heretic dirt bike with 20-inch wheels was stolen outside Cossitt School, 115 W. Cossitt Ave., sometime after 8 p.m. Aug. 29, it was reported two days later. The boy left it there unlocked and it was gone when he returned to retrieve it. That same weekend, a grey and red Schwinn boys mountain bike was reported stolen, but on Aug. 30. The theft, from the 600 block of South 8th Avenue, was reported at 4 p.m. the following day. And sometime between 10 p.m. Aug. 28 and 11 a.m. Aug. 2`9, a boys bike was ripped off from a yard in the 500 block of South Ashland Avenue.The black Fitbike, with 18-inch wheels, was valued at $250.
However, a boys red Schwinn Safari bicycle was found in front of a house in the first block of Drexel Avenue. Police picked it up the following day.
Word to the (un?)wise: If something of yours is stolen, report it missing immediately, not a day or two later.
Bad news
Unknown pranksters vandalized the grounds of Cossitt Elementary School over the weekend. The damage, discovered Aug. 30, included non-gang graffiti, beer bottles on the playground, drawings from colored wood chips in playground and fence supports removed from a pump near the playground. There was no permanent damage reported.
A resident of the 900 block of South Kensington Avenue said they caught a teenage boy going through their vehicle shortly before 3 a.m. Aug. 30. The boy, last seen walking away toward 52nd Street, was wearing a dark-colored jacket or shirt and shorts. Nothing was stolen.
A resident of the first block of South Ashland reported mail missing from his mailbox on Aug. 29.
A resident of the 700 block of Mason Drive reported Aug. 31 that over the past two months, her two vehicles have been damaged, once by being scratched over their entire surface and again when someone used a cigarette to burn the finish.
Bizarre behavior
Police could not make any arrests after a resident of the 500 block of South La Grange Road called at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 30 to report some upstairs tenants were throwing bricks -- yes, bricks -- at the building.
A resident of the first block of South 6th Avenue found small pieces of paper in front of his condominium with disturbing, rambling misspelled words referencing weapons, a female name and a DuPage County elementary school, a teacher and a specific date. Police forwarded the item to a regional police dispatch center.
Police are also investigating a report that a 14-year-old girl from the 500 block of South La Grange Road was dropped off at home by unknown men in an intoxicated state on Aug. 30. The girl's mother filed the report Aug. 30.
A student at Cossitt Elementary School, 115 W. Cossitt Ave., found a Ziploc-type bag containing a small amount of marijuana at the school, it was reported to police shortly after 4 p.m. Sept. 1. It was not known how it got there or to whom it belonged.
Over the course of two days and nights -- Aug. 30 and 31 -- a 37-year-old Bellwood woman tried to convince police that unknown men were out to get her and cause her and her children and other people's children harm. The claims started at 8:18 a.m. Aug. 30, when she called police from her mother's house in the 300 block of East Franklin Avenue to suggest friends of her ex-boyfriend threatened to "shoot up the place" and would arrive wearing blue, red or orange clothing. At about 8 p.m. that night, an anonymous caller believed to be the same woman told police some man was going to burn down her house and go to all the schools in La Grange to hurt kids, before she abruptly hung up. Her mother told police the daughter thought "hundreds of men" were after her, trying to hurt her. The following morning, her sister called to tell police the woman was at Cossitt School at 9 a.m. speaking to a social worker and to visit her children who are in the legal custody of her mother and sister. She returned an hour later, gave police eight license plate numbers and advised the men driving those cars were coming to the school. Earlier that morning, she contacted police to tell them "swarms of men" were coming to town to hurt children, wearing red, blue or orange clothing. Police could not locate any such people and found no order of protection barring the woman from school grounds. Hmm.
Fire calls
Firefighters extinguished an oven fire that broke out shortly before 1 p.m. Aug. 30 in the 600 block of Edgewood Lane.
Breaking news
A 34-year-old La Grange resident was one of two women shot at with BB-type guns as they walked down a Riverside street on the morning of Sept. 2 -- and police said the alleged offenders were four Riverside-Brookfield High School varsity football players.
The unidentified woman, who was the only one struck, sustained a large welt in her left hip and was treated at the scene by Riverside paramedics after they called police and provided a partial license plate number of a vehicle they witnessed driving away. The incident occurred about 11:30 a.m.
The other woman with her was not injured, but she told police she felt a pellet fly past her face, police said.
The students, whose names are being withheld until the investigation is complete, are all facing possible battery charges. At the time of their arrest, they were still wearing their football jerseys because they were at practice that morning.
The four teens had Airsoft guns in their possession, including one pistol and two rifles with orange tips on the barrels which fire hard, round plastic pellets, according to police. The fourth weapon looked like a shotgun and had no orange tip, said police, an indication they remarked could have made them return fire.
R-B students are still on summer vacation, and are scheduled to return to school next week due to ongoing building renovations.
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