"Unit 501, respond to ..."

You have to see this! www.firstelectricnewspaper.com/2010/10/vehicles-unmarked-and-emblazoned.html

Check out today's article on First Electric Newspaper and the photo of McHenry County Sheriff's Department Unit 501 - a golf cart decked out all all the official trappings of a marked patrol vehicle. (Photo to the right: courtesy www.mcsdexposed.blogspot.com Click on image to enlarge it for more detail; then click on the Back button on your browser to return here.)

The low number - 501 - indicates that this vehicle is probably assigned to the Sheriff. Could this be right?

The photo doesn't show whether there is a light bar or siren, but it clearly shows other official markings:

1. The 501 lettering that matches squad car numbers;
2. The "McHenry County Sheriff" lettering that matches lettering on squad cars;
3. The 7-point star (badge) that matches the emblem of office on MCSD vehicles and stationery.

Is this an official vehicle of the McHenry County Sheriff's Department? FEN reports that the golf cart was paid for out of Nygren's political campaign fund, according to soon-to-be-reinstated-Deputy Zane Seipler. In whose name is the Bill of Sale for this golf cart? The Sheriff's Department? The political campaign? Nygren's name? Someone else's name? It shouldn't take an investigator in an undercover car long to figure that out.

My question? Who paid for the paint job and the lettering? Does the Sheriff's Department employ its own painter? Are these decals that came out of Sheriff's Department stock?

FEN got the story exactly right about how the identiciation of the undercover car was revealed. Nygren doesn't seem to like the truth, because his response to FEN was, "Hah. Oh, yeah."

The following appeared in the FEN article: "The comment from one ex-spook: 'It sort of proves why it's not really very good tradecraft to gas up a covert vehicle at an official site.'"

It doesn't "sort of" prove it. It proves it! Keep in mind who the top dog is at the Sheriff's Department - the one in whose office the buck stops. The one whose "Experience Counts." The one who bears the ultimate responsibility for the decision to gas up undercover cars at the Sheriff's Department fuel pump.

Didn't Nygren (or any of the other command personnel) learn at FBI schools that you protect the undercover status of a covert vehicle by keeping it away from police headquarters?

And why didn't Undersheriff Zinke give the Northwest Herald reporter the same answer as he would have given me, had I called to ask about the undercover car? The answer should have been, "We don't reveal ownership information about vehicles with Illinois license plates." That would have ended the story, except for all the comments on this blog that showed up so quickly from people supposedly "in the know."