EVANSTON – Jack Weller, a Community Service Officer working the Wednesday-evening night shift in the Foster-Walker lobby, was honored by the Evanston Police Department Tuesday for unprecedented heroics. Weller is now the first CSO in over a decade to actually thwart an ongoing crime, a task that the celebrated hero attributed to “I have no idea how that actually worked.”

According to reports filed with the EPD, John Weller was unobtrusively reading at the front desk when he heard shouts from just beyond the doorway. Eyewitness accounts indicate that Weller lifted a single eyebrow in the direction of the disturbance, and then returned to his novel. When the shouts reemerged after another minute, Weller slowly raised himself from his chair, groaning as he went to investigate and maybe have a cigarette.

Outside, Weller discovered Mark Carver, an Evanston Township High School student, allegedly attempting to steal the purse of a Northwestern undergraduate who wished to remain anonymous. Moving quickly, Weller foiled the attack by placing his hand on Carver’s shoulder and giving him a stern look until EPD forces arrived via Segway to take the offender away very slowly.

“I was so scared at first!” the victim later gushed to The Flipside. “That man is a true hero! I really don’t know what I would have done if Jim Weller hadn’t come along!”

The Plex lobby remains filled with tributes to the grandfather-of-three, with residents promising to make a better effort to get to know the man who keeps them sort of safe at night.

“James Weller is such an awesome guy,” Plex resident Alexandra Meyer commented. “Whenever he signs my boyfriend in for the night, his fatherly glow really reassures me that this completely voluntary honor system is keeping me safe!”