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Every week, Linda Hansen
attends the Evanston Police Department’s Deployment Meetings, takes notes on
various topics and writes about other police-related matters of interest to
ordinary citizens like her.
(Not Actual Footwear Impression)
In the Squad Room - Case Closed*
In
the Breaking News category: A suspect was taken into custody and arrested on
1/27 for a shooting that took place the day before. A shooter driving a Dodge
Durango fired at and struck two individuals in a vehicle near Custer and
Brummel. The victims, with non
life-threatening injuries, were able to drive to St. Francis Hospital where one
received treatment for a gunshot to his knee.
The other victim, who suffered a graze wound, left the hospital without
receiving care. Andre Williams, 25, of
Juneway Terrace was arrested and charged with Aggravated Battery with a
Firearm, and Aggravated Discharge of a Firearm, both felonies. EPD detectives were able to use surveillance
cameras to locate the Durango and the offender.
Burglars
targeted unlocked vehicles and
garages, many of them along North Green Bay Road, during the 1/22-1/27
deployment period. Wilmette police have
reported ten recent garage burglaries and were able to obtain three separate
sets of footprints left in the snow.
Evanston (as reported here every week) and now Wilmette have seen an
increase in these offenses. There were
8 separate incidents of garage burglaries and an equal number of vehicle
burglaries in Evanston alone last week.
*Note: Offenders are innocent
until proven guilty in a court of law. A case is officially closed when the
defendant has been convicted.
Deployment Meeting – January 27, 2015
Past Week·
- There were four motor vehicle thefts in Beats 71, 75 and 76: on 1/22 on
the 2300 block of Main street, 1/23 on the 1300 block of Central, 1/24 on the
700 block of Dewey and the 2700 block of Euclid Park. All vehicles were stolen in the late
night/early morning hours. All the cars
were parked on the street; in one case, the keys were in the vehicle.
- The last of three juvenile offenders charged with robbing a victim as
she walked from the Main Street CTA station to the 800 block of Judson on 1/10
was brought into custody. CTA surveillance video was used to identify the three
teenage girls who have been arrested and will appear in juvenile court.
- Thieves will take anything. Here are a few examples of items stolen
from unlocked vehicles this week: Unsecured cash (this can mean the change you
used to use for parking meters), designer sunglasses, GPS devices and cell
phone chargers.
- A disturbance during the ETHS/New Trier basketball game on 1/23 was
handled – without further incident – by PST officers. They also assisted SRO staff at ETHS in
recruiting students for the Youth mentoring Program on 1/22.
- A retail store on Main Street reported the theft of a vintage 1937
Gibson guitar.
- EPD officers apprehended Mark McGee on 1/24 who allegedly stole a
purse from a patron at a downtown Evanston restaurant.
- A road rage incident on 1/26 resulted in an assault in which an unknown
offender attacked another driver with a tire iron on the 2400 block of Howard
Street.
Looking Ahead·
- Nearly all shifts and commands reported burglary suppression as a focus
for the coming week
- PST officers will continue to monitor downtown panhandling, bank
checks, basketball games and ETHS school dismissals.
- The armored car, as last week, is back on the street … keeping watch.
Inquiring Minds - Does the Evanston Police
Department have a cold case unit?
The
back-story: I spent just about all my free time in the fourth grade steeped in the
adventures of teen detective Nancy Drew.
There were shadowy figures. Phosphorus generally played some role. “A
“secret” was so important to every plot that the word appeared in just about
every book title. There was a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter and of
course, Nancy and her crime-fighting pals Bess and George (females, by the way)
always got the crooks. If she was as
real now as she was to me then, she’d be about 90 years old today and advising
the local cold case unit in River Heights where she lived.
Very
few of us knew anything about criminal investigations until television programs
like CSI gained popularity. It’s one of the reasons that many civilians
believe that all cases of violent crime are solved by forensics, instead of
good old-fashioned police work. So
naturally, people like me think that every police department has a crusty
veteran and an eager young detective turning up clues in cold cases.
For
the answer to this question, I turned to my ITSR Editor and Commander Joseph Dugan. Here’s what he said: “No,
the Evanston Police Department does not have a specific cold case squad. All of our unsolved
homicides are assigned to detectives and are worked based on solvability
factors. The Investigative Services Division regularly reviews all of our
unsolved homicides to determine if there have been any new developments. These
can include new information discovered from a recent arrest, new tips we’ve
received, the identification of new witnesses or evidence and advances in
forensic evidence examinations and database technologies. Unsolved homicides will always remain
open. For instance, in 2013 Evanston
detectives were able to arrest an offender in a homicide that occurred in 1992,
after resubmitting key evidence due to technological advances in DNA testing.”
 The ON-GOING GUN BUYBACK
PROGRAM allows Evanston residents to turn in an operational firearm to
police at any time in exchange for $100. Residents can utilize this
service by calling 311 or the Evanston Police Department
non-emergency line at 847-866-5000. A police officer will pick up the unwanted
firearm at the residents’ address and present the resident with a voucher that
can be exchanged for $100 at the city collector’s office located in the Morton
Civic Center, 2100 Ridge Ave.
Firearms should not be handled or brought to
the police department. An officer will call the resident after a request is
made for the officer to come to a person's residence and retrieve the firearm.
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 What would you like to know
about what the Evanston Police Department is doing to fight crime? Let us know
if you have specific questions or concerns about issues in your neighborhood.
Submissions are always welcome at police@cityofevanston.org or by calling the
community strategies bureau at (847) 866-5019.
If you’d like to receive Evanston’s Daily Crime Report by email, you can subscribe here or
view the Monthly Crime Statistics that are reported on a yearly basis to
the FBI by clicking here.
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 The Spring 12-week Citizen Police Academy class is approaching. Be a part of celebrating 20 years of the CPA. Classes begin on Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at 7PM. If you’d like to learn more about the Evanston Police Department, take an active role in Community Oriented Policing and join the ranks of 900 graduates since 1995, please visit www.cityofevanston.org/cpa and plan to enroll in the Spring 2015 class.There is no cost to anyone who lives or works in Evanston.
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The
weekly deployment report is an informational bulletin prepared by a community
member that keeps citizens informed about what police do on a weekly basis.
Information contained in this report is not to be considered as a media/press
release. Any information considered by a media source from this bulletin needs
to be verified by an official from the department. This can be done by
contacting the media line at 847-866-5026.
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