River Forest Police Charge 2 Men With Residential Burglary

Two men face residential burglary charges after a witness reported seeing a suspicious man walking through a yard Tuesday, June 11, before getting into a green Buick near the intersection of River Oaks and Lake Street in River Forest, according to a news release from the River Forest Department. 

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Aware of other recent burglaries involving a green Buick, detectives responded to the area near the 1300 block of Lake Street in Melrose Park, where they believed the offenders had been pawning stolen items, police said.

They stopped the Buick, which had a flat screen TV in the backseat, near the intersection of 19th and Lake streets in Maywood, and arrested Jeremy Seaton, 20, of Lombard, police said. Police later arrested Christopher Lukes, 22, of Bellwood, who ran from police during the traffic stop. 

Officers from the Forest Park, Maywood, Bellwood and Broadview police departments also helped stop the vehicle and find Lukes after he ran, police said.

Several items that had been reported missing from a home on River Oaks Drive were found in the Buick, police said.   

River Forest Police Chief Gregory Weiss said in a statement, “This is another example of good old fashion police work. The interagency cooperation involved, from the initial bulletin of a possible suspect vehicle developed by Forest Park PD, to the assistance from neighboring departments in stopping and apprehending the two offenders and reclaiming stolen property, all the pieces fell into place. The resident’s of River Forest should be proud of the officers involved in this arrest.”

A Cook County State's Attorney representative on June 13 approved the residential burglary charges for Seaton and Lukes, who was on parole at the time of the arrest, police said. Lukes and Seaton will appear June 20 for a preliminary hearing at the Maybrook Courthouse, police said.