With three burglaries of businesses with video gaming terminals reported in the south and southwest suburbs this week, Oak Lawn officials are asking for assistance to push back on what they say is a growing issue.
“Someone’s going to get killed,” Village Manager Tom Phelan said during Tuesday’s Oak Lawn Village Board meeting. “Whether it be police, whether it be, God help us if it’s just innocent victims.”
Oak Lawn police Chief Daniel Vittorio said thefts from gaming terminals, which can contain thousands of dollars of cash at a given time, now feel like a regular occurrence, not just in Oak Lawn, but across the northern half of Illinois.
“There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t make the news, or we may not report to our village boards, but it’s nightly where I’m getting emails from our midnight watch commanders of this town got hit,” Vittorio said.
Police arrested 18-year-old Jermone Baker Tuesday, who they believe targeted two restaurants with gaming terminals within hours of each other.
Chicago Ridge police arrested Baker at 5 a.m. after responding to a burglary alarm set off at a pizza restaurant, and the Calumet City resident was eventually identified and charged with burglary for intending to steal from Hog Wild Restaurant in Oak Lawn earlier that morning, according to police and court records.
Vittorio and Chicago Ridge police Chief Anthony Layman said while they’re grateful to officers who approach and apprehend offenders, they are concerned about safety as those stealing from the businesses often work in teams and are sometimes armed.
Layman said after Baker was arrested, police recovered three firearms with extended magazines on the scene. Baker did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
“Fortunately, he didn’t have any of these guns on him, because that could have went a whole different route,” he said.
Offenders can be difficult to catch if police aren’t able to respond right away, Vittorio and Layman said, as many are able to get in and out of the businesses in just a few minutes and wear masks and gloves to avoid being identified through security camera footage.
“There’s multiple subjects, there’s different crews, so it’s not necessarily an easy thing to investigate,” Layman said. “It’s a frustrating thing for our officers too, because they want to catch these people, just like the business owners want us to catch them too.”
Layman said Chicago Ridge, home to about 30 businesses with video gaming terminals, has seen five such burglaries since October.
He said the Police Department responds with extra enforcement during times when burglaries are more frequent, but it lacks the bandwidth to protect every business that’s at risk. On one occasion a few weeks ago, police were notified of the burglary of a business with video gaming terminals almost immediately after an officer whose vehicle was stationed outside the business left to respond to another call, he said.
In Oak Lawn, Vittorio said adding officers to overnight shifts and investigating the slough of cases seen since last fall has created a huge cost for the village.
Village officials have expressed frustration that while responding to video gaming terminal burglaries is largely left up to municipalities, only 5% of proceeds from the machines go to the municipality or county where the terminal is located. According to the Illinois Municipal League, 29% of the proceeds go to the state and about 65% go to the venue and terminal operators.
Vittorio said the village is unable to regulate the terminals within businesses, as they are under state control. He said he’s reached out to the Illinois Gaming Board and Illinois State Police for assistance in handling the break-ins but hasn’t received any response.
“This isn’t something law enforcement can fix alone,” he said.
A spokesperson for the Illinois Gaming Board said in a statement to the Daily Southtown the board is aware of burglaries of video gaming terminals statewide but said it’s not responsible for providing security services.
“The IGB’s goal is to ensure the integrity and safety of gaming operations,” the spokesperson said. “Among other measures, the IGB does this by enforcing surveillance and regulatory standards at licensed video gaming establishments. In addition, we work closely with local police departments, the Illinois State Police and other law enforcement agencies, local state’s attorney’s offices, and the Illinois Attorney General’s Office to support efforts to investigate and prosecute burglaries at video gaming establishments.”
The spokesperson pointed out charges brought by the Illinois attorney general’s office in September against three men who allegedly stole more than $500,000 from video gaming machines at multiple locations across DuPage, Cook, Lake and Will counties as well as arrests made in December 2024 by Illinois Gaming Board agents in a Calumet Park video gaming cafe.
ostevens@chicagotribune.com
