COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A armed Schiller Park man was arrested at a Northwest Side pool hall Monday, not for possessing the 9 mm Ruger handgun police found on him, but for trying to get in a bar by claiming he was in law enforcement.
Ali Ozturk, a 34-year-old Schiller Park man with no apparent criminal record, has a firearm owners ID card and concealed-carry permit and is legally allowed to carry a gun.
But Monday night he tried to enter a bar near the 3100 block of West Lawrence Avenue which doesn't allow guns, prosecutors said at a court hearing Tuesday.
When a bouncer tried to do a "protective patdown" of him, Ozturk took a step back, prosecutors said.
He allegedly told the bouncer he was armed, flashed what appeared to be a badge, and told the bouncer that he worked for the "Officers Division of Adult Institutions."
According to the bouncer, Ozturk said, "'I work for [the] state. I just want to check out the bar, and I don't want to leave my gun in the car,'" a police report states.
When he was refused entry, Ozturk went to a nearby pool hall called UNO Billiards, prosecutors said. A witness called police and identified Ozturk through the front window of the pool hall.
Police confronted Ozturk, and while leading him out of the pool hall, he explained that the gun was legal. Ozturk also made an "excited utterance" about buying the badge on eBay, the police report states.
Ozturk said he "was sorry and that he didn't mean to hurt anybody," according to the report.
In March of 2013, Ozturk was identified in a DNAinfo story as the then-owner of Yogurt Square at 4701 N. Lincoln Ave.
At the court hearing, Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. chided Ozturk.
"So, you get a concealed-carry permit and go out in the street and act like a cop?" the judge asked Ozturk.
Ozturk was charged with impersonating a peace officer. Bourgeois set Ozturk's bail at $150,000.
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