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Hospital Officer Suffers Heart Attack After Beating by Teens

CHICAGO – A Stroger Hospital police officer with 19 years on the job died on Tuesday — and his family says he died of a heart attack after being harassed by local teens on a South Side bus.

Dwayne Parks, 45, the father of 11, apparently fended off some punches from his harassers but dropped dead of a heart attack just blocks from his home, his family said.

An autopsy is “pending police investigation” and additional medical testing — although initial reports indicated he was badly beaten.

He was found in the 9400 block of South Langley at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, police said.

Parks was on his way home from work when several teens “disrespected” and bumped into him on the bus, his uncle Kevin Parks said.

“He just told them ‘Please, I don’t want to be bothered,’ " Kevin Parks said. But the teens persisted and at least two got off the bus at 93rd Street and Cottage Grove and charged behind him, he said.

Police Officer Dwayne Parks

“He defended himself and showed them his badge and they just ran away,” Kevin Parks said. “But as he got to walking away, he had a heart attack and died.”

The Cook County medical examiner’s office would not comment on whether the beating played a role in what family members called a fatal heart attack.

Parks had been employed as a police officer at Stroger Hospital for 19 years, said hospital spokesman Lucio Guerrero. Guerrero said Parks had just finished a shift at the hospital when he died.

Parks was in the U.S. Air Force for six years as a military police officer prior to his employment at Stroger. He left behind children ranging in age from 3 to 25 and lived with his 64-year-old mother Helen Ousley Parks, a maintenance employee at the University of Chicago, family members said.