Woods' shooting injury poorly investigated

The Northwest Herald carries an article today, in the print edition and online, with the headline "Candidates criticize incident" and the sub-headline "Nygren says his political foes presume without the facts."

Remember the famous phrase, "Don't confuse me with the facts. My mind is made up."

Throughout today and tomorrow I shall be posting the following "facts" to the online version of the story. And maybe I'll think of more before the 48-hour period for posting comments on http://www.nwherald.com/ expires.

FACT: “’We investigated it thoroughly,’ Nygren said.” Oh, really? The only supervisor’s report is that of Lt. Cedergren, which was written the same day as Woods was injured (March 15), and it contains erroneous, incomplete information. It states that Woods entered the room, and then Hart entered. It does not mention that three deputies (Embry, Manes, McKenzie) entered the room before Hart entered.

FACT: “multiple discussions and a survey of a re-created scene of the incident”? There is no documentation of ANY review by the sheriff and department leaders. Why aren’t those discussions documented in writing? What is a “survey” of a “re-created” scene? Did the Sheriff and department leaders go to the range and stage a re-enactment with the same principals? If so, why isn’t it documented?

FACT: No negligence at range? A steel-backed target is placed in the shoot room only four feet from the entrance? That’s not negligence?

FACT: Woods did not shoot on the attacking-dog target, which was the very first target he encountered. Then he stopped two feet to the left of it. Why?

FACT: I have read all the available reports. Three reports do not exist. 1) Woods’ own report; 2) Sgt. Embry, who was second into the room (after Woods), and Lt. Miller, the senior command officer at the range. How much time elapsed before Embry, Manes, McKenzie and Hart entered.

FACT: Deputy Hart’s own report said he fired “one round of 5.56 cal”. His report does not state that he was shooting a frangible load. Was he?

FACT: Reports of two corrections officers didn’t contain just “substantially the same language.” Two of them contained 71 consecutive identical words. This is statistically impossible. Either someone else wrote their reports and told the corrections officers to sign them, or the sentences were dictated to them. Other reports contain similar wording or shorter identical phrases.

FACT: No deputy, except Morrow (who was rangemaster), mentioned frangible bullets. No report states what steps were taken at the range to assure that all loaded weapons contained frangible rounds.

FACT: Four reports of corrections officers, addressed to Lt. Cedergren, included mention of frangible rounds: “I heard Woods say that he got hit by some pieces of the frangible rounds” (Carlson, Grisolia) and “I heard Deputy Woods say he had been struck by fragments of the frangible rounds” (Christensen, Knezevic). These sentences are too close to identical to have been written independently.

FACT: No report states that Woods said he could feel his leg bleeding. Sgt. Pyle’s report stated that Dep. Hildreth provided initial first aid to Woods’ left leg and right hand. There is no report from Hildreth.

FACT: I called the Office of the Illinois Attorney General on Tuesday, May 18, 4:02PM, left a detailed message with the Criminal Bureau about the purpose of my call (to request an investigation at the McHenry County Sheriff’s Dept.), and no one called me back. On Friday, May 21, 3:18PM I called again. No one has yet called me back.

FACT: The rangemaster wrote an Incident Report. All the other deputies and all the corrections officers wrote “Departmental Correspondence” reports, which are the lowest form of written communication in the Department, usually reserved for “For Your Information” reports. Why didn’t they write Supplemental Incident Reports?

FACT: Woods’ leg injury was described to me on March 17 as a “gusher”. Did a bullet fragment injure an artery?

FACT: My comment about rumors pertained to the persistent rumor that Woods was sent into the shoot room ahead of the other four members of the SWAT team who entered the room (Embry, Manes, McKenzie, Hart; in that order) as “indoctrination” or “orientation” (or “hazing”, as one source called it), so that Woods would have the experience of guns being fired around him. This rumor is sufficient to cause an external, independent investigation. Only an outside, impartial agency can thoroughly investigate, analyze and critique this injury incident.

FACT: Lt. Cedergren’s report states that Sgt. Groves diagrammed the scene using Total Station; however, there is no written report from Sgt. Groves describing how she obtained the information for diagramming the scene.

FACT: Woods was injured at approximately 1:33PM. Lt. Cedergren’s summary on March 15 states that he was notified of Woods’ injury at 3:20PM by Deputy Morrow and that, when he arrived at the range, Woods was still there. What took so long for Woodstock Fire/Rescue to transport Woods to the hospital? Not one report included the arrival time of WFRD or its departure with Woods.