When I learned on Saturday of a "double fatality", "many Sheriff's Dept. squad cars" and "Coroner leaving at 7:30PM", I was curious about what had happened at a house off Route 176 just east of the Fox River (west of Island Lake).
A call to the McHenry County (Ill.) Sheriff's Department on Sunday afternoon has not been returned. Nothing has been published in the Daily Herald or the Northwest Herald. Was it just a "training exercise"?
On Tuesday I'll ask my friend, Mr. FOIA, to inquire. How will MCSD respond? Will it cough up information then?
Yesterday (Sunday) was, after all, New Year's Day. Offices are closed. Employees have days off. People have hang-overs. Supervisors take time off. And Saturday afternoon? Peoples' brains are already focused on New Year's Eve parties and how to keep from getting stopped on the way home. I hear it can be embarrassing to get stopped after you've been drinking, present your driver's license and insurance card, and "sort of" flash your badge at the cop who has stopped you.
The on-duty, in-uniform cop faces a real dilemma. He has already called in the traffic stop as a possible DUI. Everybody on the air has heard the license plate number. Many might recognize the plate number and guess the name of the driver. The $64,000 Question is, "Will he ticket or duck?"
Sunday was not the first time that I have left a message at the McHenry County Sheriff's Department and been ignored. Well, wait; let me be fair. I know that my messages are not ignored. I'm sure the dispatcher gave my message to someone; she is not going to risk her job over a telephone message. So, in response to my request to have a command officer call me about what very likely was a serious incident, to whom did she give the message? And exactly what did that person do with it? Did he make a three-pointer in the waste basket in the far corner?
I guess FOIA could help me find that out, too. And maybe (what's the name of that fancy, expensive, documentation program that MCSD pursued over five years) could help, too.
My message on Sunday wasn't "ignored". It was intentionally disregarded. And, for that, some supervisor deserves seven days off without pay and a written reprimand in his file. Why such discipline? Why? It will help him get promoted; that's why.
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6 comments:
A reader provided this information by email:
When a relative passed away from cancer several years ago at home, the place looked like a crime scene because he had not yet been registered with the coroner as home hospice, so there were multiple squad cars, the coroner came, and his family was barred from the house until the coroner confirmed he had been sent home that day for hospice.
When another relative passed away, the coroner had been informed. The funeral home dispatched to retrieve her body, and a squad car was dispatched to wait until a family member arrived to secure the property.
It may not have been anything more than someone dying at home. I would check the obituaries.
Many thanks to that reader for this comment.
From both personal AND professional experience:
Often times, if it was a sucide, it's unlikely you'll get any info initially - at least until the Coroner completes a report.... and even then...
The surviving family members NEED, and are thankful for, the discretion shown.
As this was a "two-fer", again, could have been a terminally ill mercy/suicide.
Once again, from personal and professional experience both, discretion is enormously appreciated by surviving friends and family.
OTOH, should such circumstance be reported to you as such by the authorities involved, you'd likely let it drop.
OTO,OH, the coroner and related law enforcement cannot even provide you with that unfortunate, yet official conclusion until many weeks of investigation are completed.
As your other reader mentioned, (and again from personal experience) even an ordinary terminal death at home with a family with a DNR order, the resultant response necessarily appears as a crime scene to neighbors until everything's sorted out.
All that being said, I would say this:
1) You have more than adequately demonstrated to us all that the MC Sheriff's office need be closely monitored.
2) The MCSO and other official offices need treat you, a prolific blogger, with the same deference as the NW Herald, Daily Herald.
3) Were they to comply with the above, and if any of these theories be correct, you would have been informed for the time being, that, "this situation looks to be "x".
4) I know you, Gus. I'm sure that if you were told that if "this situation looks to be "x", that you'd wait at least for an official coroner's report or inquest before commenting, or if you ever would.
If the MCSO doesn't care to cooperate with you, maybe the MC Coroner will?
The Coroner is also an elected Office. Your posts regarding the MCSO tell us we need cast a gimlet eye. The recent history of the Lake County Coroner's Office tells us we must also be scrutinizing our Coroner as well.
Maybe you should attempt cultivating a relatioship with the MC Coroner? Perhaps that Office would be willing to tell you, if this had been THAT type of case, that "this situation looks to be "x"?
DBTR, thanks for your comment. I didn't call the Coroner's Office over the week-end. MCSD is, of course, a 24/7 operation; it's not like there wouldn't be somebody with authority on duty.
The Coroner's Office would be on-call, of course.
I've got the phone numbers ready and the drafts of the FOIA requests are prepared.
Most information from any public body shouldn't require a FOIA, but it does. If agencies would stop stone-walling, their costs would go down.
I know, right?
Let's see if the McHenry County Coroner's Office is independent of the MCSO.
If the McHenry County Coroner's Office sees themselves as being worthy their own Office, or are subservient to Party politics.
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