Daily Herald announces Sheriff's plan to appeal

Read the Daily Herald (the "other" McHenry County daily newspaper) at http://www.dailyherald.com/ for the story on Nygren's plan to appeal the favorable decision given to Zane Seipler in his July arbitration hearing. The decision (three-days' suspension, not termination; and back pay) was released this week. (A story about the planned appeal appears on Page 3C of the print edition of this morning's Northwest Herald.)

When you get to the Daily Herald site, search for "Seipler".

More importantly, read the comments, especially by "choppedliver" at 8:24PM (10/20/09) "about someone's son caught DUI in woodstock one day... the sheriff suddenly took over for woodstock police and everything mysteriously VANISHED..." and by "GeneL" at 9:01PM (10/20/09) in which he comments about a DUI stop after which charges and reports disappeared.

Now, the "believing" citizen will be quick to say that things like that don't happen in police work. Let's say, they "shouldn't" happen.

A sheriff, anywhere, shouldn't be able to "take over" in a traffic case in a town/city/village. While he has general jurisdiction anywhere in the county, his authority over a town's police officer doesn't exist in a traffic stop in that town. It's the police chief of the town who tells his officers what to do. Would a patrol officer knuckle under to a sheriff? I would hope not.

What he'd do is call his supervisor, who would make the decision. Then either the supervisor or his supervisor (and on up the food chain) might acquiesce to a sheriff's request (or demand). And then the officer would go home and yell at his kids and kick his dog. Just kidding; but he'd be mad, frustrated, disappointed, etc., and his relationship with his department would have been stained (and strained).

A simple example of supervisory action - In Crystal Lake last year, a motorist was being threatened and intimidated by employees of Viking Dodge, who had parked three pick-up trucks to block in that motorist on the shoulder of U.S. 14. Two were parked inches in front of and behind the motorist's car; a third pick-up was parked alongside between the man's car and the roadway, blocking his car door.

I asked the Crystal Lake officer to ticket two of the pick-ups, which had no license plates. He could have done it. The shiny, new pick-ups were sitting right there on the public right-of-way without license plates! What did he do?

He called his sergeant, who called Viking Dodge. Within two minutes two salesman ran across the street with dealer plates and put them on the trucks.

Some law enforcement, eh?