Skokieans Tell Village Board of Scary Encounters With Crime

Several residents took an opportunity to tell the Skokie village board about their frightening encounters with crime and/or police activity. They made their remarks during the public comment section of the village board meeting Monday, Oct. 7.

One who spoke, Elyn Sclair said she was driving on Church Street, just east of Niles Center Road Friday morning, Oct. 4, at 9:05 a.m., when she saw many marked and unmarked law enforcement cars, including some marked "ATF" for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, apprehending a taxi, which was stopped on the street. 

She said they had not only handguns, but long guns which she guessed were shotguns, pulled out and aiming at the suspect. 

"You don’t see this every day on Niles Center Road," she said. "It scared the c--- out of me." 

She added there is a school bus stop nearby. Had it happened 20 minutes earlier, she said, there would have been lots of school children at that bus stop.

She asked what had happened, and Mayor George Van Dusen said he didn't know, but that he would find out.

"That’s a federal  agency," Van Dusen said. "The ATF, FBI, Secret Service, do coordination with local police officials...  I don’t know offhand why the driver was pulled over but if the feds were involved it probably had something to do with something that was interstate in nature."

He sympathized with her distress. 

"Take my word for it...any time a gun is used any time at all for any reason whatsoever, it’s enormously disturbing," he said.

Skokie Patch will update with additional stories about what residents said.  

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