Winfield man accused of head-butting Wheaton squad
One of four men recently charged in DuPage County with impersonating a police officer at area homes is again behind bars after Wheaton police arrested him on a warrant late Thursday.
Luke Halstead, 19, of the 1N500 block of Turnberry, near Winfield, has been charged with criminal damage to government supported property, related to a July 3 arrest in Wheaton. He's being held on $15,000 bond.
Wheaton Deputy Police Chief Robert Miller said Halstead became "agitated and disgruntled" while officers were arresting him outside a grocery store on an outstanding warrant and head-butted the squad car, damaging the vehicle.
They were arresting him on a $3,000 warrant because Halstead was charged June 27 with harassment through electronic communications for an offense that happened in January.
According to court documents, Halstead is accused of threatening to injure a Winfield man, via an electronic communication, at 12:01 a.m. on Jan. 28.
Halstead previously was free after posting 10 percent of his $20,000 bond in the impersonation case. He also was ordered to be fitted with a GPS monitoring device.
In that case, Halstead, Thomas Kozie of Oak Park, Cory Abendroth of Wheaton, and Khoung Dam of Carol Stream were charged with impersonating an officer after they made late-night stops at homes in Wheaton, Winfield and West Chicago. The four recorded the visits and planned to post the recordings on social media.
Prosecutors say at 10:05 p.m. on June 3, Kozie, of the 900 block of Fair Oaks in Oak Park, approached a house near West Chicago, rang the doorbell and identified himself as Jeff Rushmore, an investigator with the Winfield Police Department.
Kozie told the homeowner he was compiling a missing-person report regarding a neighbor two doors down. After briefly speaking to the homeowner, Kozie entered a vehicle occupied by Abendroth, Halstead and Dam, who were filming the exchange, and left, authorities said.
After the encounter, the homeowner called the DuPage County sheriff's office.
Later that night, the men went to several homes in West Chicago, Wheaton and Winfield, authorities said. At each one, Kozie rang the doorbell and identified himself as a police officer, using different names while the others waited in a vehicle filming.
At the time of the June offenses, Halstead also was on bail for a misdemeanor domestic battery case from April 21.