Round and round she goes ...

... where the wheel will stop, nobody knows. Here we go again.

Nearly five years years ago I was told that some off-duty deputies had left the Red Mill (a sometimes cop bar in in Woodstock on Lake Avenue near Route 47 (and under its former management)) in a highly intoxicated manner and that one deputy had been battered (you've heard of assault and battery) by another deputy. I went to Woodstock Police Chief Lowen and asked about it.

Chief Lowen told me he didn't know anything about it and would check into it. Soon thereafter, he told me that he had sent a detective to the McHenry County Sheriff's Department, and he had returned empty-handed. I don't think those were his exact words, but I understood that the deputy had not been able to learn anything about the birthday party at the Red Mill, the drunks, the drunken driving or the battery.

If you go to Cal Skinner's McHenry County Blog (www.mchenrycountyblog.com) and scroll down to the article titled Sheriff Seeks Sanctions for Privacy Violations, While Violating Privacy Order or “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” on October 28th, you'll find a reproduction of a MCSD letter dated February 8, 2007, from the Equal Employment Opportunity officer, Kathleen Seith.

The five-page letter from EEO Officer Seith is nasty. This letter is in the public record in Zane's case in Federal District Court in Rockford. Go to McHenry County Blog and read it. The excuses, reasoning and B.S. from senior command personnel of the Sheriff's Department deserve broad publicity. These people are still in charge today.

I hope that Chief Lowen reads that five-page letter. His detective should have come back to Woodstock P.D. with information in 2007.