Tuesday, January 3, 2012

What is the public entitled to know?

When there is a significant law-enforcement incident on an afternoon in the county, what is the public entitled to know about it? And how soon?

Perhaps the question is, is there any reason that the public should not be informed?

On Saturday afternoon, Dec. 31, there was a major response by the McHenry County Sheriff's Department to a location on Ill. Route 176, just east of the Fox River. Numerous squad cars were there for hours, with their overhead emergency lights flashing. Later a deputy coroner showed up.

So I guess one of the first questions is, once the situation was identified, why weren't the emergency lights shut off and even the engines of the squad cars turned off? Why would I think the engines were allowed to run? Because the overhead emergency lights in use for hours without running the engine would drain the vehicle's battery.

If the Coroner is observed leaving about 7:30PM, is it not a logical assumption that someone died there? Was a yellow Hummer with license plate an Illinois personalized, non-government license plate most likely there on official business? (This article has been updated at 1:42PM to remove the license plate number. Please see more recent article.)

OK, so that was Saturday afternoon. On Sunday afternoon an inquiry was made to the Sheriff's Department. A female dispatcher took my message. I asked her to give it to a command officer and to ask for my call to be returned. That was early Sunday afternoon. Surely, the dispatcher did forward my message to a supervisor or patrol commander. She is not going to risk her job by filing my message in "File 13".

Did anyone call? Not on Sunday. Not on Monday. Not yet on Tuesday.

Do you suppose that MCSD wrote up some policy, and then had it put in the CALEA manual, that phone calls from citizens would be returned? Or maybe they wrote it up as, "All phone calls from citizens will be returned within four hours or as soon thereafter as possible, unless Philpott calls. If Philpott calls, don't bother to return any call from him."

I wonder what the next CALEA evaluator from Gainesville, Virginia, will think of that!

2 comments:

Gus said...

The names of the deputy coroners used to be shown on the McHenry County Coroner's website. Now they are gone.

Kim (last name?) was the deputy coroner who was at the scene near Island Lake on Saturday. She is off today. I don't expect her to call back today; it's her day off. But somebody in the office (her supervisor?) must be handling her calls and should have her report.

Or will no information be available until at least Wednesday, which is four days after whatever the incident was on Saturday?

Gus said...

Deputy Coroner Kim Bostic returned my call this morning. There is an "ongoing investigation", and no information will be available for 6-8 weeks. Zero, zip, nada. Nothing. No names. No specifics about what happened there.

So there was obviously at least one death there, or the Coroner's Office would not be involved.

The public should NOT have to wait 6-8 for information.