Police will let schools handle soccer theft case

The eight Morton High School soccer players who apparently swiped personal items like cash and cell phones from the Bartlett soccer team won't face criminal charges, Streamwood police said.

Authorities instead left disciplinary action in the hands of the Cicero school. Its athletic director, Steve Lemon, said Wednesday the accused players have been dismissed from the squad for the rest of the season.

The players have already served five-day school suspensions.

The thefts occurred Sept. 10 at Streamwood High's Millennium Field, where Bartlett shared a locker room with Morton for the Bartlett Invitational tournament.

Several Bartlett players discovered items missing from their bags, including cash, wallets, cell phones, an iPod and shoes. Morton has returned most, but not all, of the stolen items.

"They're still going to try and make restitution the best they can for what can't be recovered," said Bartlett High Athletic Director Dan Kallenbach.

Bartlett agreed to let Morton handle the matter internally, mainly because of the Morton administration's swift response.

"I can't imagine being put in that situation," Kallenbach said. "If it were reversed, we'd want to deal with it ourselves. I thought they did a great job over there."

He said Bartlett will try to avoid situations like this in the future. The soccer players typically take their belongings with them to the field but left their bags unsecured in the locker room because of the weather.

"It was a crummy, rainy and windy day, which made for the perfect opportunity," Kallenbach said. "We certainly won't be as lax about it from now on."

He called Morton a "class program" and said the team will be invited back to the tournament next year.

"Morton's won it four years in a row now," he said, adding that the match between the two teams five days after the theft was clean.

"Someone's got to beat them."