People driving near Harrison Street and Austin Boulevard Thursday night shortly before 9:30 were likely wondering just what the heck was happening. According to at least two witnesses who were driving by at the time, not only were there 10 police squad cars parked in the Amoco gas station with lights flashing, there were around a dozen young men running north in the 500 block of South Austin Boulevard and jumping into cars.
Though the area around that intersection is known for drug trafficking, that isn’t what was going on. Oak Park police responded to a call of a suspicious person that became a domestic battery. In reality, the battery wasn’t domestic, and hadn’t occurred in Oak Park. The turmoil was the result of an altercation between a man and a small group of other men in Chicago.
According to Oak Park Police Commander Kennan Williams, several people apparently pounded on the man, who managed to drive off. He stopped in Oak Park to buy gas, but was followed by at least two carloads of men.
When responding police arrived, the men following the van driver bolted. Police managed to corral several of them.
“People were stopped and talked to,” said Williams.
However, the victim, who was treated and released from a hospital for a swollen and scraped face, and a possibly dislocated shoulder, declined to sign a complaint, so no one was charged with a crime.
“I’ll handle this in the city,” the man told police.
-Bill Dwyer