New crime column: Deadly crosswalks, hulking cops
Seems that suburbanites love to leadfoot around town, stopping only, and not always immediately, when the light turns red. Crosswalks? What might those be?
People grew frustrated enough in Mount Prospect with a lack of crosswalk compliance to start a Facebook campaign encouraging people to activate a signal telling drivers to stop for pedestrian traffic at Central Road and Weller Lane. But rather than cross, the online drive suggests, pedestrians should instead whip out their cellphones and capture scofflaws hurtling through the intersection.
But the would-be recipients of this evidence, the Mount Prospect Police Department, would just as soon the well-meaning crimestoppers' efforts come to a halt. Their motivation was solid: It was prompted by the death of a 55-year-old woman hit by an SUV while riding her bike through the crosswalk. But police say they've seen no such evidence of chronic scofflaws near the intersection, and random triggering of the crosswalk signal could cause more problems than it solves.
That was the lead item in Friday's Cops and Crime column by Deputy City Editor Chuck Keeshan and staff writer Susan Sarkauskas, a feature that debuted Aug. 19. And after the first month, Chuck says reader feedback has been "almost entirely positive, with several telling us it's about time we launched something like this." He also points out there's no shortage of cop- and crime-related "and, seemingly, no lack of appetite for it among readers."
In this first month, Chuck and Susan have covered an array of quirky, interesting - and important - stories, from murder cases that have dragged on and on to the psychological impact working a gut-wrenching case such as the baby left to die on the side of a road in Wheaton can have on even the most grizzled of cops.
Two of their favorite items: 1. Passing along word that Lou Ferrigno, who played "The Incredible Hulk" on the 1970s TV series, was named Rosemont's first honorary public safety officer. 2. News that a guy who shot up an Elgin bar, killing two people, was looking for a pen pal. Luther Casteel is serving a life sentence. "I think the glamour shot put that one over the top," Susan says.
But she also points out a practical side to the column. A Glen Ellyn woman contacted us to advise that these phone and online scammers can be persistent and persuasive. She detailed how an "Officer David" from the IRS said her mother, who is in her 90s, owed $10,786 in back taxes, gave her an IRS code, case numbers. When questioned, the "officer" transferred the woman to a supervisor who announced the mom would be arrested if she didn't buy that amount in federal bonds.
The woman didn't fall for the scam, but as Susan puts it, "The details of her tale will, I hope, teach our readers."
Contact Jim Davis at jdavis@dailyherald.com. Follow him at JimDavis06 on Facebook and dhjimdavis on Twitter.