Arlington Heights police responded about 9:41 PM Thursday to an armed robbery of a customer at an ATM at Chase Bank, 43 East Golf Road Arlington Heights, IL. Police received a report that an unknown offender approached the victim while the victim was in their vehicle at the ATM drive-up. The victim had placed their debit card into the ATM machine, entered their PIN number and placed their debit card down in the vehicle while the offender approached from behind the vehicle on the driver’s side. The offender pointed an unknown object at the victim, told the victim to wait, and took money from the ATM. The offender left the scene in a dark-colored SUV.
The offender is described as a male/Hispanic with light-brown skin, age 20. The victim was last seen wearing a black hoodie, a black knit hat, and winter type gloves.
The crime is reported to have occurred on Wednesday, February 12, 2014 at 9:40 p.m.
Cardinal Note: As of June 5, 2013 — up to and including the date of this article — police incidents related to the above police agency are not reported in real time or within a prompt time period. Police protecting their realm of investigation and police activity, have chosen to use secret military-grade encrypted radios to withhold their police communications, which were previously open to the public and news media via monitoring of public safety scanning radios — with no known negative results locally.
The delayed knowledge or entirely blacked out knowledge resulting from encrypted police communications may protect certain police operations and investigations, but it also puts the public at risk in situations such as when armed and dangerous offenders are at large and when other similar situations occur, such as when desperate offenders of property crimes are eluding police. In other cases, the delayed or blacked out information inhibits or prohibits the possibility of the public providing early witness accounts before a criminal trail goes cold. Citizens are much more likely to recognize or recall suspicious or criminal activity if they are aware of the criminal incident within minutes or hours of its occurrence. The most serious incident involving dire results would be a trail that is allowed to go cold in the case of child abduction.
The lack of real time information from public police dispatch also weakens an effective neighborhood watch program mostly working to prevent property loss, but also working to prevent possible violent crimes.
Police have alternate ways to transmit tactical, operational or investigative information, while still keeping their main public dispatch channels open for the best balance of public safety and police safety.
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I only go to ATM’s that are drive-thru. I pull very close to the ATM, so nobody can squeeze between me and the car.
I’ve seen people pull up to ATM’s, get out of their car and work the device…, compromising their security…not good.