Park Ridge police meet with businesses, discuss unruly youths and peer juries

The Park Ridge Police Department and the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce hosted a special meeting on May 31 for business owners and residents to discuss safety issues in the Uptown area. Their main concern? Rowdy, noisy teenagers in the Uptown business district.

The meeting was led by Park Ridge Police Team Leader Elle Czworniak. Representatives from the Police Department, Park Ridge Park District, Park Ridge Library, Action Ridge and Uptown Area employees were in attendance. The lion’s share of the meeting was devoted to discussing groups of middle school students involved in disrespectful behavior, ranging from children using foul language to destroying property.

“The majority of these kids are great kids,” Park Ridge Police Chief Robert Kampwirth said. “We’ve all been there, haven’t we? And when you put them all together, they get bored.

Kampwirth said there had only been one report from the previous summer and he hoped merchants would call police if necessary. “We need you to call us and tell us when they are damaging property,” he said.

“We don’t want to criminalize (kids) going downtown and hanging out, right? But if they cause trouble, if they threaten people with breaking their property, damaging property, stealing things, those things go beyond security issues and are criminal. Then we can talk to them and then talk to their parents,” Kampwirth said. “But again, we had a fight, we had an arrest, last summer. This is the only report I remember seeing.

A Panera employee said that in the summer of 2023, their bathroom was heavily damaged by fireworks, causing $6,000 in damage. The restaurant installed security codes on the doors for customers, but did not file a police report.

A Park Ridge resident said his daughter saw school-aged youths entering the Chipotle kitchen and initially refused to leave when asked to do so. This incident was also not reported to Park Ridge police, according to the parent. Kampwirth said he was not aware of either incident and asked those involved to call police.

Part of the problem with policing Park Ridge’s Uptown neighborhood, the central business district, is that large numbers of young people congregate and move around the area’s parks, businesses and library, Czworniak said.

“By the time the policeman arrives… we have at least 20 groups of 10 children in different areas. So I don’t know if it was this group here running in the street or if it was this group there.

“Try to get the little details (on the offenders) so we can act as quickly as possible, because if we’re here to talk to this group, and they have nothing to do with the problem, this group who offended, they might be long gone,” Czworniak said.

Another challenge in policing the Uptown area is the fear of backlash business owners experience if they call the police, said Jackie Mathews, executive director of the Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce. “It’s their livelihood,” she said, noting that the business could face retaliation on social media if the owners called the police.

Some businesses are also reluctant to call the police, Mathews said. “They feel bad. They say, “We don’t want to bother them.” They’re so busy, there’s so much to do…” But if we don’t document that, if (the police) don’t have the documentation, they have no way of developing an action plan to remediate. So we need to help the police help us.

Several Action Ridge members asked what practices police could use to go after young people who have misbehaved. In October 2023, a student resource officer from the police department attended a discussion hosted by the group to talk about the different approaches the police department takes when dealing with misbehaving youth.

Deputy Police Chief Gene Ware said the department uses a peer jury system for juveniles who have committed a minor offense and their peers (youths their own age or just a little older) take action. as jurors.

“The jurors listen to the case, they have a supervisor who supervises the jury, and they talk about the case, they deliberate to talk about what they think the child should receive as punishment, and that might be works of general interest, (or) write a letter to the company and apologize for what they did.

“So we do that too. And it helps in that it doesn’t put the child in a situation of arrest or referral to the juvenile justice system. This is an alternative program that we use.

Ware added that when minors go through this mediation process, both parties must agree to follow the process.

After the meeting, Kampwirth told the Pioneer Press that the department would maintain the same number of foot patrol officers in the area and that the department would focus on building relationships with business owners. “We are talking to other managers and people who work in these places, to get a better idea of what exactly is going on,” he said.

Kampwirth said Park Ridge has seen an increase in bad behavior from youth during the summer over the past 30 years he has served in the department. “Every year summer comes, kids hang out in Uptown, lots of them doing good, but when you get that many people together, some block the sidewalk (and others) get intimidated. So we just want to make sure we’re out there.