After now-former Elmwood Park Fire Chief Michael Terzo allegedly tried locking a 24-year-old male employee of a local bar in a walk-in cooler and slugged him during an alcohol-filled late-night incident in the western suburb in August, public records show the politically connected Terzo explained away his actions.
“The kid was being cocky.”
Terzo, 55, cast a humble appearance recently at the Maywood Courthouse for a hearing on the criminal charges lodged against him after the Aug. 10 incident at the Tiny Tap, 7648 W. North Ave. The incident sent the younger man, who the Chicago Sun-Times isn’t identifying, to the hospital.
At the Friday hearing, officials revealed there had been a superseding indictment brought against him — upgraded charges that now have him facing two felonies: unlawful restraint and aggravated battery.
The accuser was not in court, but offered his first comments not long after over the phone, telling a reporter he’s “doing ok, I’m back to work” at the Tiny Tap.
He remains stunned by the incident: “It’s a neighborhood bar where everybody knows everybody.”
Asked what he would say to Terzo if he spoke to him, the accuser said he’d probably ask something like: “What were you thinking?”
That being said, he says he has no desire to speak to Terzo — who resigned as fire chief after the incident, and is a political backer of Elmwood Park Mayor Angelo “Skip” Saviano, a former state legislator. Though a Republican, Saviano’s campaign fund gave $500 to Democratic Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s campaign fund in 2024. Her office is prosecuting Terzo.
The accuser said that sometime after the fracas, Terzo apparently reached out to someone at the bar to see if the victim would speak to him, but the accuser had no interest.
“I don’t have anything to say,” the accuser said.
Police reports say the accuser’s job involves bringing “beer and ice from the cooler to the bar.”
During his shift on Aug. 10 — on the same weekend as the suburb’s annual family festival that Terzo apparently attended — 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?” a police report says. He then left the cooler.
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 broke his glasses, and may have inadvertently slugged someone else amid the incident, records show.
A spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office said the aggravated battery charge carries a sentencing range of two to five years in prison.
Terzo is due back in court Oct. 31.