Chicagoist Weekend Blotter

By Shannon in News on Jan 7, 2007 8:10PM

Huzzah, the holidays are over and the blotter is back!

An SUV rolled off the Skyway at around 3:30 a.m. Sunday morning and caught on fire. Driving the vehicle was an unidentified 18-year-old female; she had with her three male passengers, two of them 22 years of age and one 20. Her GMC Envoy hit a guardrail at the 67th Street exit, rolled off the ramp, and burst into flames. All passengers were taken to area hospitals, their conditions unknown.

In famed Naperville, police are giving wireless phones to elderly residents to make up for a telecommunications upgrade gaffe. Thursday afternoon, utility crews working on the phones lines accidentally severed three cables, forcing a sizable outage suburb-wide. To guarantee that the aged can reach the proper medical authorities in case of an emergency, the Police Department Elderly Services Team are offering out a limited number of wireless phones that only dial 911. The outage is expected to be fixed by Sunday evening.

johnny chimpo-approved!

Two men were busted on the Southwest Side for possession of almost 500 pounds of marijuana. Police set up an investigation earlier in the week on a tip; on Thursday they saw Jose Perez, 27, and Alejandro Sanchez, 19, drive to a garage around the 3400 block of West 72nd Place and pick up some bundled mary jane. After busting the dopey duo, police found 445 more pounds of dank nugs in the garage. All told, roughly $1.27 million worth of marijuana was seized, along with three handguns and over $52,000 in cash.

And finally, this just makes us want to bawl: Way out west in Cambridge, IL, a teenage boy managed to save his aunt from a house fire Thursday night, but lost his life when he tried to go back in and save the family's two cats. Seth DeShane, 14, alerted his aunt to the blaze caused by faulty Christmas tree lights. She thought he was following her, but he had gone back in to search for the pets. He never made it back out. The house, and a brave boy, are no more.