The politically connected fire chief of Elmwood Park has resigned amid allegations that, on the same weekend the near western suburb hosted its annual family festival, he tried locking an employee of a local tavern in the beer cooler and slugged him, and perhaps another man, amid a booze-filled incident that’s led to criminal charges.
Why did Michael Terzo allegedly behave this way at the Tiny Tap on Aug. 10 in an incident that was captured, at least in part, on video?
“The kid was being cocky,” Terzo later said, referring to the 24-year-old male victim.
That’s according to police reports that also have Terzo saying: “He disrespected me.”
While village officials say Terzo was “off duty,” questions remain whether Terzo was driving a municipal vehicle before or after the incident — and how much he’d been drinking.
Terzo, 55, wasn’t cited for any alcohol offenses but was hit with three other charges: Unlawful restraint, a felony; battery/physical contact, a misdemeanor; and criminal damage to property, a misdemeanor, according to the Cook County sheriff’s department.
That agency handled the case because Elmwood Park police had a conflict of interest. Both the fire chief and the police chief ultimately answer to Mayor Angelo “Skip” Saviano and the village board.
Terzo, who’s slated to appear in court on Tuesday, has been a longtime campaign contributor to Saviano, a former state legislator, as was the Tiny Tap’s operator, records show.
Police reports say the accuser’s job at Tiny Tap, 7648 W. North Ave., involves bringing “beer and ice from the cooler to the bar.”
During his shift, he “noticed an unauthorized person in the cooler” and told the man, who turned out to be Terzo, “that only employees were allowed in the cooler.”
Terzo responded, “Do you know who I am?” the police report says. He then left the cooler.
Later, Terzo was standing behind the bar and the accuser asked him to move, the records say.
Terzo told him: “I’ll move when I get my beer.”
Around 1:20 a.m., a bartender told the accuser to “retrieve” some drinks from the cooler and when he “proceeded to the cooler,” he was “confined inside” by Terzo.
When the “cooler door opened” slightly, the worker “stuck his head and foot through the door,” the records say. Terzo was outside and asked him, “Are you trying to get out?”
The fire chief then “shoved the door closed,” which caused the worker “bruises above his left eye and left calf.”
The employee “forced his way out of the cooler and escorted Terzo to the rear exit,” where Terzo punched the man, and may have inadvertently slugged someone else amid the fracas, records show.
An off-duty Elmwood Park cop was among those who helped break up the altercation, records show.
Around that time someone appears to have phoned the tavern operator, who wasn’t on site. While driving to the establishment, apparently to figure out what had transpired, he pulled over as “a dark-colored SUV flashed its high beams at him.”
Terzo turned out to be the SUV driver, and he told the other driver he had locked an employee in the cooler “for disrespecting” him.
Later, Terzo returned to the bar — which has video gambling devices inside, along with a framed White Sox jersey bearing the name of Pope Leo XIV on the wall — and was drinking a beer outside. He was told, apparently by the tavern operator, he had to leave after the beer and Terzo said, “You think you’re a big shot?”
The accuser ended up in the hospital. Reached by a reporter, he declined comment.
Terzo’s attorney Mark Sutter declined comment.
Saviano wouldn’t comment, but a village spokesman released a statement saying:
“The Elmwood Park fire chief was recently involved in an altercation at a private business in Elmwood Park while he was off-duty. A police report was subsequently filed at the Elmwood Park police station. Police were not called to the business.”
“Immediately upon learning about the incident, the village administration placed the fire chief on administrative leave. The investigation into the incident was turned over to the Cook County sheriff’s department per protocol.”
“On Aug. 14, the Elmwood Park fire chief submitted his resignation, which was accepted.”
Neither Saviano nor Paul Volpe, the village manager who previously served as a top aide to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, asked Terzo to leave the job, the spokesman said, adding that Terzo was “not on duty” at the Taste of Elmwood Park. The 40-year-old festival — which offers food, drinks and entertainment — wrapped up for the day two or three hours before the incident.
Terzo apparently had been in attendance. The village spokesman said Saviano reached out to the victim and his family after Terzo resigned.
Police records on Tiny Tap incident