6 | July 11, 2019 | The glencoe anchor news glencoeanchor.com Police Reports Driver of stolen auto eludes police from South Avenue At 9:08 a.m. June 27, unknown offenders entered an unlocked 2013 Acura and drove off in the vehicle in the 300 block of South Avenue. Police observed several traffic violations on the vehicle, which appeared to be traveling with another vehicle. When the officer attempted to stop the vehicle, both fled and refused to stop. In other police news: July 1 • Ambrosia Perez-Benitez, 28, of Wheeling, was arrested for unsafe tires, DUI of alcohol, open alcohol and no insurance at 10:45 p.m. at the Lake Cook Road exit on Interstate 94. His court date is Aug. 16. June 30 • An unknown offender left a 2017 Kia illegally parked at 2:11 a.m. in the 600 block of Village Court and police discovered it was stolen from Lake Bluff. June 28 • A juvenile was cited for possession of cannabis and a no parking violation at 5:26 a.m. in the 900 block of Skokie Ridge Drive. June 26 • Candice N. Faassen, 33, of Lake Villa, was arrested for improper lane usage, unsafe equipment, no valid license, DUI of drugs and aggravated DUI with no license at 7:46 a.m. at the intersection of Dundee Road and Vernon Avenue. Her court date is Aug. 6. June 24 • Amari Dayshawn Harvey, 21, of Evanston, was arrested for aggravated identity theft of a victim over 60 years old at 9:11 a.m. at her residence. EDITOR’S NOTE: The Glencoe Anchor’s Police Reports are compiled from official reports found on file at the Glencoe Police Department headquarters in Glencoe. Individuals named in these reports are considered innocent of all charges until proven guilty in a court of law. Lt. Neimark reflects on 29 years serving Glencoe before retirement Alan P. Henry Freela7nce Reporter If you’ve lived in Glencoe long enough, chances are you’ve crossed paths with Lt. Mike Neimark, of the Glencoe Public Safety Department. Perhaps it was something as innocuous as a balky carbon monoxide detector or a set of keys locked in the car. Or maybe it was a frantic late night call for a paramedic, or the report of a break-in. Or maybe you were driving a little too fast on Green Bay Road. For 29 years, Neimark has answered the call in his capacity as a certified police officer, firefighter and medical first responder to keep the residents of Glencoe, their homes and their community safe. Now, as he prepares to retire on July 31, he wants to thank everyone for their support. “It’s been a great 29-anda-half years. I’ve loved it here,” Neimark said. “Glencoe is a beautiful community. The residents are very supportive of public safety and everybody on the department.” Neimark, 53, joined the department in 1990. In his first two years, he completed basic level training at the Chicago Police Academy, Highland Park Hospital’s paramedic program and the Arlington Heights Fire Academy. Over the years, he has held positions on the dive team, Dive 3 Haz Mat Team, arson investigator, fire inspector, paramedic and PS lieutenant. On July 4, he conducted his 30th and final fireworks inspection for the village’s show that night. The Public Safety Department was established in 1954 when Glencoe combined the police and fire departments into one single, cross-trained department and is one of only two departments in the state that operates this way. Neimark wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. “I love this setup. It works great for us. Everybody has to be able to do everything at a moment’s notice. We just had storms roll through, fallen trees, dropped power lines. Everybody was swapping back and forth between fire and police. No matter what we are doing, we can switch. We all carry out turnout gear in the back of our cars and we become firefighters,” he said. Lt. Mike Neimark will retire from Glencoe’s Public Safety Department at the end of July. Photo Submitted It helps, he added, that “one minute you can be writing them a ticket but the next minute you are coming to save their life if they have a medical emergency. They know it is the same person, and we have a lot better rapport with them because of that.” The fact that everyone in the department is trained as a paramedic is of particular importance, Neimark said. “We can get a paramedic who is on the street to the scene of the medical emergency a lot quicker than waiting for the ambulance because we may have a paramedic a block away. They can be there and begin treatment with what they have in their cars,” he said. Each squad car, he noted, carries a full first aid kit and an automated external defibrillator (AED). “It has been proven that the faster you get it there the better off a person is. For every minute of delay to get an AED to somebody their chance of survival drops by 10 percent, so by having one out on the street with trained people is a lot better for the residents,” he said. Being crossed trained and prepared for anything also “keeps the job from getting monotonous,” he said. One day that was anything but monotonous involved a call to a house fire on Vernon Avenue in Winnetka, where the first floor was fully in flames. He and another member of the squad had raced to the second floor to check to make sure no one was up there, but had to crawl along the floor to do so because dense smoke was already below knee level. “The sub-floor burned out underneath of us and we were on carpet and we just kept sinking, sinking, sinking. That was a very scary thought, thinking that you could fall into the fire below us. We had to high-tail it out of there before we fell through,” said Neimark, who has received eight commendations for service way above and beyond, and many more letters of recognition. It’s the camaraderie Neimark is going to miss the most. “It’s going to be hard,” he said. Every three months their shifts change, and he makes it a point to go out for dinner with his new group and their spouses. “Everybody gets to know everybody that way, and everybody seems to enjoy it. We try not to talk about work and mostly focus on outside-of-work issues and meeting each other,” he added. The department of 36 is currently comprised of a chief, two deputy chiefs, seven lieutenants and 26 public safety officers. There is a special kind of camaraderie, not just in the smaller squads, but amongst the entire group as well, said Neimark. Older veterans are teaching younger department members the ropes, while younger tech-savvy members are helping the older ones become comfortable with the department’s increasingly computer-based operations. “It is really nice having the millennials here to help with a lot of that,” he said. Neimark’s vaunted cooking skills may soon be missed, particularly during his Saturday breakfasts. His specialty: “royal french toast,” comprised of two pieces of french toast with cream cheese and jelly in between. Biscuits and gravy are another favorite, and, of course, bacon. “We love bacon here. We eat a lot of bacon,” he said. Going forward, in the short term, the married Arlington Heights father of two plans to “sit back, decompress for a little bit and just relax.” He and a fellow former public safety officer will also continue their business in which they teach CPR and first aid, and do Haz Mat and active shooter training for private businesses. He also teaches at the Northeast Illinois Public Safety Training Academy.
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