Joliet Cops: Great Grate Robbery Solved

First it was the village administrator. Then it was the economic development director. Are Shorewood's sewer grates going the same way?

That way would be to New Lenox, the very same town that took Silver Cross Hospital from Joliet.

There is no evidence that New Lenox has been stealing Shorewood's sewer grates. But somebody is, and Mayor Rick Chapman suspects the crooks aren't turning around and cashing in the take as scrap metal.

"Cast iron's worth about 2 cents a pound," Chapman said during this week's village board meeting.

"They must be selling them in kind," the mayor said of the sewer grate thieves.

When asked if another town, possibly New Lenox, for example, might be stealing the grates to use for itself, the mayor laughed.

But the mayor found nothing funny about the 16 sewer grates that have been stolen from Shorewood's gutters in recent weeks.

"They're presumably going to the scrap yard," village Trustee Dan Anderson said during the meeting.

But the mayor disagreed and made a point of noting the lack of monetary value in cast iron scrap.

"Do you really think they know what they're stealing?" Anderson countered.

Maybe not, but the police believe they know who is doing the stealing. According to a source at the department, suspects have been identified and the investigation of the thefts is very active.

The Shorewood cops might be active, but the Joliet police seem to be actually getting things done. According to the Joliet Police Department's Facebook page, Joliet's officers arrested three men on Thursday and charged them with stealing about 200 sewer grates from Joliet, Shorewood, Romeoville, Lockport and Crest Hill.

And it turns out that Anderson was right — according to the Joliet police, the grate-grabbers were selling the sewer covers to a Romeoville scrap yard.

Right or wrong, all of this must be good news to the Mayor Chapman, who during the meeting said, "They're rotten thieves" and told Police Chief Aaron Klima, "Put them in jail if you can."

But it's too late for that — Joliet's already taken care of it for him.