CAVE-IN-ROCK, Ill.—There seems to be something unusual in Cave-in-Rock happening to a handful of the general populace of late, and tonight was no exception.
We just learned that at about 7:15 this evening, Saturday, April 21, while a Masonic Lodge meeting was going on at the location on Canal Street in Cave, a boy came stumbling through town with a whiskey bottle in his hand. Why Davey Thomas Jr, age approximately 20 (definitely under the legal age to drink in Illinois) decided it was a good idea to go out in public after consuming such a large amount of alcohol is unknown, but that’s what he did.
He stumbled past a group of kids who were hanging out in front of the Lodge while their parents were inside at the meeting, and began harassing them and yelling at them. This prompted two men to come out of the building, one of them Michael Austin, age approximately 25, who is a correctional officer at the boot camp in Golconda.
The men went up to Thomas, told him to be quiet, and advised him to “move on down the road.”
However, Thomas didn’t feel like doing so, and allegedly pulled a knife on Austin.
A village resident, Daniel Mills, saw what was happening and came out of his house, came up to Thomas, and somehow got the knife away from him. At this point, Austin was able to take Thomas to the ground, and law enforcement was called.
But when police (officer Wendell Conkle and another officer whose identity we weren’t able to confirm) arrived, and Thomas got up, he allegedly pulled yet ANOTHER knife on everyone present, declaring he was going to “cut their guts out!!” He was again disarmed, placed in handcuffs, and taken into custody. According to reports, Thomas has only recently been released from DOC on a drug conviction; however, we’ve not confirmed that. If we learn this week that his butt’s back in the slam, however, that’d be the reason for it.
What with the hostage situation the other night and a couple of other incidents, things are just flat WEIRD in Cave. Our sources indicate that there was a guy who reportedly goes by the name of Bozo Vaughn that, a couple of weeks back, allegedly pulled a gun on cops after they responded to a domestic at his home; a week later, a guy by the name of Nathan Barnard was allegedly threatening to shoot himself with a weapon in housing, but he was able to be taken in and went to rehab; and just over the weekend here, there was a reported break-in at a summer house in Boyd’s Addition in Cave, where $10,000 worth of stuff was stolen; CSI was reportedly there today investigating. And of course there was the incident a couple of days ago wherein two guys allegedly attempted to leave Rose’s Cafe without paying for their meal.
If anyone has any opinion on what’s going on in Cave that has all this stirred up, feel free to post it! We’re stumped.