Oak Park police have submitted their annual report to the village board.
The report gives insights on Oak Park’s 2024 crime stats, the police department’s recent staffing challenges, future priorities and new initiatives it introduced over the last year. The report also touches on how the department has used its Flock camera license plate reading technology over the course of investigations.
The report is available to the public and will be discussed in depth at the village board’s meeting Tuesday, July 22.
The report also contained several tributes to Detective Allan Reddins, the long-serving Oak Park officer who was shot and killed while on-duty last November.
“Our mission to provide high-quality law enforcement services that are accessible to all is rooted in the fundamental belief that public safety is a shared responsibility between the community and law enforcement,” OPPD Chief Shatonya Johnson wrote in her address to the community. “This past year has also brought profound sorrow to our department and the wider community with the tragic loss of Detective Allan M. Reddins. His dedication to service and commitment to the safety of our residents will always be remembered. Detective Reddins embodied the values we strive to uphold: integrity, respect and a deep sense of community. We mourn his passing and extend our heartfelt condolences to his family and all who knew him. His legacy will inspire us to work even harder in our mission to serve and protect.”
Reddins’ killing was one of three homicides that occurred in Oak Park last November, the only killings in the village all of last year, according to the report. From 2020 to 2024, there were a total of 12 homicides in the village, according to the report.
In April, Corey Gates, a 54-year-old from South Holland, was killed in what authorities have described as an attempted carjacking. He is the most recent victim of an Oak Park homicide, and a 20-year-old Chicago man Jabari McGee has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with the killing.
The man charged with Reddins’ murder, Jerrell Thomas, was arrested at the scene and now awaits trial facing life in prison. Sergeant Derrick Verge, one of the arresting officers, was given the Police Medal of Valor award from the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police for his heroism on the day.
According to the report, there were 507 assault or battery incidents, 30 sex offenses and 37 weapons violations in Oak Park in 2024. The weapons crime figure was a five-year high, according to the report.
Oak Park also saw 1,475 theft incidents, 206 motor vehicle thefts and 64 robberies, according to the report. 2024 represented a steep decline in motor vehicle thefts with the count trending down from 347 in 2023, but figures are still much higher than they were in 2020 and 2021 when police only investigated 94 and 76 motor vehicle theft incidents in the village respectively, according to the report.
Staffing woes at the department has been a talking point in recent years, as the new report speaks to what staffing has looked like in detail.
According to the report, 2024 saw the greatest amount of turnover that the department’s seen over the last six years, with highs in both new hires and departures among sworn officers. The department hired 19 new officers but lost 20 to either retirement or resignation last year.
Johnson told Wednesday Journal in April that the department has 86 sworn officers with the goal of getting to 116 by “mid 2026.”
In 2019, the department had 109 sworn officers, according to the report. The department also has six open civilian positions, according to the report.
The report also delved into the department’s use of Flock license plate reader cameras. The cameras’ addition to the department’s tool kit has been controversial among some residents concerned with how the cameras impact privacy and with what access departments in other states or jurisdictions have to Oak Park data.
According to the report, Oak Park police received nearly 30,000 total alerts from the Flock cameras in 2024, mostly in connection with suspected stolen plates. The department received 1,728 Flock alerts related to suspected stolen vehicles, 81 related to suspected missing persons and 33 related to suspected violent persons.
The department said it leaned on information gathered by the cameras over the course of investigations into several violent incidents, including an investigation that led to the arrest of two men for a string of armed robberies last September, according to the report.
According to the report, Flock provided insight into cases that did not necessarily lead to arrests. Examples of this identified in the report include the investigation into the murder of Scott Robinson, a 34-year-old Chicago man shot and killed near the intersections of Ridgeland Avenue and Roosevelt Road last November.
According to the report, Flock cameras identified the car used by the suspects in the killing as stolen and tracked where it maneuvered through the village prior to the shooting. The stolen car was later recovered by authorities in Chicago, but no arrests have been made on murder charges related to Robinson’s slaying.
