Armed rowdy youths at Freedom Middle School

March 16, 2007, 3:28 PM
A call came to Berwyn Central complaining of boys loitering near Freedom Middle School, 3016 Ridgeland. Officers found two 17-year-old boys, one from Berwyn and the other from Cicero, hanging around the school. The boys said they were from Morton East and were waiting for a friend to get out of Freedom. The teens were frisked. One boy, 5'11" and 200 pounds, was carrying a 1-foot-long steel hammer in his waistband. He said he carried it for protection ever since a gang jumped him. Police confiscated the hammer and arrested the teen for unlawful use of a weapon.