Criminal charges were pending for a person in connection with the early Wednesday stabbing of a snowplow operator who had been salting driveways in a quiet Hoffman Estates neighborhood, according to authorities and the man’s boss.
About 6 a.m. an employee of Tiger-Scape Inc., an Elgin-based landscaping services company, was salting driveways in a community of brick townhomes near Poplar Creek, according to Horacio Sanchez, the owner of Tiger-Scape. Sgt. John Bending, a spokesman for Hoffman Estates police, said officers were dispatched to the area of Golf Road and Moon Lake Boulevard for a report of an “unknown problem” and learned a person had been stabbed while in the 1700 block of Pebble Beach Drive.
“Right now we’re in the beginning phases of the investigation but I can tell you we responded to that area for a report of a stabbing,” Bending said.
Sanchez, whose business has been plowing and salting the property in the community for 20 years, said one of his employees was salting driveways when he was the victim of an apparently random attack.
“I don’t know much about it right now. One of my guys got hurt, just driving, and a random guy showed up with a knife and cut his hand. As far as I know, it’s under investigation,” Sanchez said. “He got hurt on his hand, they fought, (the employee) took the knife away from him … and he chased him across the street.”
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The employee followed his assailant across busy Golf Road, which serves as a border with neighboring Schaumburg, and ended up near a CVS.
Sanchez wasn’t sure what happened after that because he couldn’t get in touch with his employee, who was stabbed in his hand and arm and taken to Amita Health St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates with injuries that Bending said were not life-threatening.
“I don’t have any communication with my driver because his phone is inside of the truck and nobody is allowed to go near the truck,” Sanchez said. “He seems to be OK. The police told me he’s fine.”
By late afternoon Wednesday, Bending said criminal charges of aggravated battery were “pending” for the person detained. In a news release Bending said the employee had been stabbed in the hand and arm and Bending said officers located the assailant soon after the attack.
“Nobody is at large and there’s no danger to the community. He has been detained … pretty quickly afterward,” Bending said.
Sanchez didn’t know who would want to hurt his employee or why and he was surprised something like this happened in an area he considers so safe.
“We’ve been here for 20 years with different companies. We know this place very well, it’s a very nice neighborhood. So I was very surprised when he called me … it was a shock.”
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