Flossmoor Stung by String of Auto Burglaries

As Flossmoor police investigate several cases of burglarized cars around town, residents are spotting suspects and, in one case, catching them in the act.

It's not yet clear if, or how, these recent auto burglaries are related.

Early Monday morning, an alert resident in the 18900 block of Avers Avenue saw two men peering into parked cars, police said. The resident quickly dressed and went outside to confront the men, according to the report. 

Once outside, the Flossmoor man found the driver’s side doors to his Lexus open, and the two unknown men inside his vehicle, rifling through the vehicle's contents, police said.

Apparently incensed by this discovery, the Lexus owner told police he slammed the driver's door on one burglar’s legs twice. That man reacted by gripping his legs in pain and racing north on Avers. He was apparently slowed by pain and also by his sagging pants, the resident said. The second man also fled, running south on Avers, dropping a car radio faceplate in the driveway.

A Flossmoor police officer was then notified by a woman walking a dog near a Flossmoor school that she saw a man leaping fences on Maple Avenue.

Continuing his investigation, the officer was then approached by two women walking near the intersection of Elm at Beech Street, and they handed him a wallet. The women told the officer that besides their discovery of the wallet, they had observed a shirtless man running near, at 3721 Beech St.

Following up this lead, the officer later saw a shirtless man crossing the bridge near Dynasty Lakes Subdivision near Hazel Crest. The Hazel Crest Police Department assisted with a canine unit, but the shirtless man was not found.

The Flossmoor police then followed up with the wallet's owner, identifying him by his driver's license. That man told Flossmoor police he was surprised to learn that his wallet had been stolen, and he then checked his black Ford sedan parked in the 18800 block of Harding Avenue. He found his vehicle had been burglarized, with his Blackberry, MP3 player and two Chase debit cards missing, police said. 

In other cases:

• A gray Nissan Murano parked and left unlocked in the owner's driveway in the 18700 block of Harding Avenue was burglarized sometime between Sunday night and Monday morning, police said. The thief of thieves removed two car chargers, and iPod cable, and $3 in coins, according to the report.
• A Ford Windstar passenger van parked in a driveway in the 3600 block of Cherry Hills Drive was burglarized sometime between July 13 and last Saturday, police said. The car's owner said he was missing a Garmin GPS, a portable DVD player and a cigarette lighter power-port splitter.
• A Flossmoor woman living in the 2000 block of Collett Lane received an email from Chase Bank that said a check had been cashed by "Lorenzo Sims," police said. The woman then discovered that her checkbook had been stolen from the center console of her car. She said she left the car unlocked in her driveway overnight. It's believed the car burglary occurred sometime between 10 p.m. on July 10 and 10 a.m. the next day, police said.
• Sometime between the evening of July 13 and the following morning, a Volkswagen Jetta and a Volkswagen Eos were burglarized while parked at a residence in the 1600 block of Tina Lane, police said. The Jetta's owner said he lost a black Coach wallet, a BP gas card, assorted other cards and a GPS, and the Eos owner reported her GPS stolen, police said.