Busted! Woman's Morning Swim Ruined by Sight of Unwelcome Moon

Busted! takes a look at the more unusual reports that the men and women of the Tinley Park Police Department respond to. Names have been withheld to protect the innocent, the guilty and the embarrassed.

Usually, the most awkward part of doing laps in the pool at local health club is occasionally drifting into another swimmer's lane.

But that wasn't the case recently for a woman who went for a morning swim at Tinley Park Fitness Center, 17500 S. Duvan Dr., and encountered a fellow health club member who either had a faulty drawstring on his swim trunks or an overinflated sense of immodesty. Or both.

According to a Tinley Park Police report, the woman got into the fitness center's pool at 7:05 a.m. on Nov. 20, and swam laps for about an hour. At 8:05 a.m., a white man in his mid-70s, between 5-feet-6 and 5-feet-8 tall, with a shaven-bald head and wearing black swim trunks got into the pool, the report stated. While the woman continued to swim laps, the man stood at one end of the pool near the jets, the report continued.

As the woman swam closer to the man, she said she noticed that his swim trunks were down around his knees, flashing his keister, the report stated. (Editor's note: Patch also would have accepted "bum," "duff," "rear," "derriere," "patoot," "hinder" or "posterior.") The woman turned her head so she wouldn't see his exposed genitals, the report added.

After getting out of the pool, the woman reported the incident to the club's manager, the report stated. The manager checked the pool area for the trunkless man, but he had left by that time, the report continued. The man's description didn't match any club members the manager knew, according to the report.

The woman told police that she thought the man intentionally exposed himself and that she believes this has happened before, but "she wasn’t 100 percent sure," the report stated. Although she didn't want to sign a complaint, the woman told police she wanted a report on file so the fitness center could speak to the man and possibly have him removed when he was identified.

Busted! Update

On Nov. 15, the debut edition of Busted!, Patch ran an article about a 73-year-old man accused of assaulting a manager at Old Country Buffet on Nov. 3 over a disagreement concerning the customer's restaurant coupon. At the time, the manager did not want to issue a complaint in the incident, and no one was charged.

However, on the same day the article was published, Nov. 15, one charge of battery was filed against the customer, Kenneth Godfrey, of the 17600 block of South 68th Court. No details were available from police concerning why Godfrey was charged almost two weeks after the incident.

Police report information is provided by the Tinley Park Police Department and other law enforcement agencies. Charges are not evidence of guilt. They are a record of police actions on a given day, and persons charged with a crime are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court. If you or a family member are charged or cited and the case is subsequently adjudicated, we encourage you to notify the editor. We will verify and report the outcome.

Other Crime and Police Stories on Tinley Park Patch:

• Vintage Machine Guns Could Give Police Dept. Some Bucks for Those Bangs
• Special Prosecutor Won't Prosecute Will County Board Member's Son
• Blotter: Beer Cans Up the Coat Sleeves While Driving? That Trick Never Works
• Cigarette Shop Becomes Break-In Target for 2nd Time in Less Than 2 Weeks

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