Search Orland Park Police Records

Orland Park police records are held by the Orland Park Police Department and, for areas outside village limits, by the Cook County Sheriff. As a south suburb of Chicago with close to 59,000 people, Orland Park sees a fair share of police activity. Most reports you need will come from the village police department on Ravinia Avenue. This page walks through every way to get police records in Orland Park, from FOIA requests to criminal history checks and crash reports at the state level.

Orland Park Police Department Records

The Orland Park Police Department is the main source for police records in the village. They handle all incident reports, arrest records, and field contact cards for calls within Orland Park. The department is located at 15100 South Ravinia Avenue, Orland Park, IL 60462. You can reach their records division by phone during normal business hours.

To get a copy of a police report in Orland Park, you file a request under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The FOIA (5 ILCS 140/) gives you the right to ask for records from any public body in Illinois. That includes village police departments like Orland Park. Put your request in writing. Include the date of the incident, the case number if you have it, and the names of the people involved. Be as specific as you can. Vague requests take longer and sometimes get denied.

The department has five business days to respond. They can extend that to ten if they give you a written reason. The first 50 pages of copies are free. After that, you pay $0.15 per page. Orland Park accepts payment by check or money order. Some departments now take online payments, but check with their records section first to be sure.

Orland Park sits mostly in Cook County. A small part of the village crosses into Will County. The police department covers the whole village regardless of county lines, so you still send your FOIA request to the same place no matter which side of the line the incident was on.

Cook County Sheriff and Orland Park

The Cook County Sheriff's Office handles police records for unincorporated areas around Orland Park. If an incident took place just outside village limits, the sheriff likely has the report. The sheriff's patrol division covers all of unincorporated Cook County, and that includes pockets near Orland Park that fall outside any city or village.

You can submit a FOIA request to the Cook County Sheriff through their GovQA online portal. The office is at 50 West Washington, Room 704, Chicago, IL 60602. For Orland Park residents, the online portal is the fastest route. Mail and in-person requests work too, but they take more time. The same five-day rule applies under FOIA. Keep in mind that the Cook County Sheriff is a separate agency from the Orland Park Police Department. Records do not cross over. You must request from the right one.

The Cook County Circuit Clerk also keeps court records tied to arrests in the area. If a case went to court, you may need both the police report from the arresting agency and court records from the clerk.

Filing a FOIA Request in Orland Park

Every FOIA request for Orland Park police records should include a few key details. Start with your full name and contact info. Then describe the record you want. The more detail you give, the faster the process goes. A case number speeds things up. If you do not have one, use the date, time, and location of the incident.

State law protects some records from release. Under the Criminal Identification Act (20 ILCS 2630/), arrest records for cases that did not end in a conviction may be sealed or expunged. Juvenile records are also restricted. If the Orland Park Police Department denies your request, they must tell you why in writing. You can appeal a denial to the Illinois Attorney General's Public Access Counselor. That appeal costs nothing.

The FOIA law in Illinois also says that agencies cannot charge for search time or review time. They can only charge for the cost of copies. So when you file a request in Orland Park, you should not see any search fees on the bill. If an agency tries to charge you for staff time, that is a violation of state law.

The image below shows the Illinois FOIA statute, which governs all police record requests in Orland Park.

Source: Illinois General Assembly

This statute applies to all public bodies in Illinois, including the Orland Park Police Department and Cook County agencies.

Criminal History Checks in Orland Park

Criminal background checks work differently from police report requests. You cannot get a full criminal history from the Orland Park Police Department. That is not how Illinois set it up. Instead, you go through the Illinois State Police Bureau of Identification at 260 North Chicago Street in Joliet, IL. The phone number is (815) 740-5160.

The Uniform Conviction Information Act (20 ILCS 2635/) controls what criminal data the public can see. Only conviction records are public. Arrest data without a conviction is not part of the public file. The ISP uses two main systems for these checks. CHIRP at chirp.isp.illinois.gov handles name-based searches. You register, submit the person's name and date of birth, and the system returns conviction data. The other route is fingerprint-based through a Live Scan vendor.

For Orland Park residents wanting their own record, the ISP offers an Access and Review process at no charge. You can check what is on file under your name, and if something is wrong, you can challenge it. This is a separate process from FOIA. Filing a FOIA request with the Orland Park PD will not get you a criminal history report.

Crash Reports and Traffic Records

Car crash reports in Orland Park come from two places. If a village officer responded to the crash, the Orland Park Police Department has the report. Request it through FOIA. If a state trooper handled it, the Illinois State Police keeps the report. ISP Troop 3 covers Cook County, including the highways and tollways near Orland Park.

For ISP crash reports, visit isp.illinois.gov/CrashReports. Reports cost $5 each by mail. Send a check to the Patrol Records Unit at 801 South 7th Street, Suite 600-M, Springfield, IL 62703. The ISP FOIA Officer is Sarah Wheeler, and you can reach her at ISP.FOIA.Officer@illinois.gov for other record types.

The Illinois Sex Offender Registry is another resource for Orland Park residents. You can search it at sor.isp.illinois.gov. The registry shows offenders by address, name, or zip code. It is free and open to everyone. This is maintained by the ISP and updated regularly.

Nearby Cities

These cities are near Orland Park and may share overlapping jurisdictions for police records, especially in border areas.