Elmwood Park police say a man was robbed of a large amount of money destined for a video gambling machine last week.
According to police, the incident took place around 2:30 p.m. Nov. 24 at the corner of 73rd Avenue and Diversey Avenue. Police said a man was about to enter Celtic Corner, 7300 W. Diversey Ave., when he was approached by a man with a gun and was told to hand over the backpack that he was carrying.
The man complied and the robbery suspect drove away north on 73rd Avenue — which is a one-way street southbound — to Wellington Avenue and then into the Chicago city limits.
Elmwood Park Police Chief Frank Fagiano said the victim of the crime was a “collector” who worked for a video gambling company. The victim had about $10,000 in his backpack, which was going to put in the video gambling automatic teller machine inside the Celtic Corner, Fagiano said. The machine dispenses cash to video gambling winners.
Fagiano said the person who was robbed has been working with police since the incident. He said Elmwood Park police investigators have been working tirelessly since the time of the incident.
Frank McPartlin, who is a member of Village Voice Neighborhood Watch, located in Elmwood Park,, said he received a call on the day of the incident and went to check it out.
McPartlin said this is why he is a part of Village Voice Neighborhood Watch. He’s also no stranger to politics, running for Cook County Commissioner of the Ninth District last year, hoping to win the seat away from incumbent Commissioner Peter Silvestri.
“[Village Voice members] were against gambling in the bars anyway, because it was an easy target for thieves to rob,” he said. “It’s an easy mark. This is a perfect example of what we were talking about and that’s why we started the neighborhood watch. This is how we found out about this today.”
McPartlin suggested that schools in the area should have been put on lockdown. Fagiano said there was no need for it.
“There was no threat to the schools,” he said. “The threat had fled to the city. It didn’t affect any of our schools.”
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Fagiano added that an earlier armed robbery of a gas station at around 1 p.m. that day, on the 2100 block of Harlem Avenue, was unrelated to the Celtic Corner robbery. No one was injured in the gas station incident, where a man with a gun entered the gas station and left the scene with money from the register.
That incident is being investigated as well and Fagiano believes it could lead to an arrest.
“We have excellent video and several officers canvassed the area.”
Fagiano feels the same about the robbery on Diversey.
“I’m confident we will get some type of resolution out of this,” he said.
Twitter: @DavidDPollard