DWIHitParade makes ABC-TV news

Several years ago Ken Rossignol and I got acquainted online. We haven't met yet, but one day we shall. I was in his area of Maryland back in 2006 or 2007 and called him on short notice, but he was under the weather and we didn't meet. I did bring back a copy of his St. Mary's Today paper, though, which I had bought at a Rest Area. I just didn't get the autograph that I wanted.

Ken sold the paper in January and fired up http://www.dwihitparade.com/  And on June 30th ABC news covered his crusade against drunk drivers. You can view the ABC-TV segment at

www.wjla.com/articles/2011/06/ken-rossignol-takes-to-the-web-to-expose-dwi-drivers-63060.html

Ken is my kind of guy; he's a "take no prisoners" soldier in the war against drunk drivers. You can reach his website at any time through the link to the right of this story.

If you want to let your buddies drink, do it. Just take away their car keys!

Keep up the good work, Ken!

Bring N.C. DUI decisions to Illinois

A judge in North Carolina doesn't mess around with DUI drivers. Judge Edgar Gregory, in Greenville, N.C., sentenced a 21-year-old Winston-Salem woman to a minimum of seven years in prison, no parole, for driving in a fatal crash that killed three.

www.news-record.com/content/2011/03/18/article/editorial_harsh_penalties_fit_dwi_offenses

Imagine what a few (or a lot of) decisions like that would do in Illinois. What do we have, instead? Months and months of wrangling (continuances) in court, and then a "deal".

And read also about a different N.C. driver with three DUI's (2002, 2008 (2)), who then got into a DUI crash in 2009 that killed a 17-year-old girl. He had gotten suspended sentences on the two 2008 DUI charges (which occurred within two weeks of one another!). His probation was revoked. He is in jail now and also is charged with second-degree murder in the 2009 crash.

What will it take to get drunk drivers off the road???

Read http://www.dwihitparade.com/ and keep after your legislators and judges.

Comment on guilty plea in DUI fatal crash

I decided to place this comment separately from the press release by the McHenry County State's Attorney in the guilty plea of Tania Cederholm, 35, of Woodstock.

Please note the date of the crash - February 21, 2007. Today is just about three weeks short of four (that's FOUR (4)) years. Four years. What in the world could take four years??? Legal maneuvering. Fancy footwork. Continuance after continuance after continuance.

Read the press release - her BAC was 0.246. She had a DUI in 2004, which would have been probably less than three years before the fatal crash on February 21, 2007.

And look at the wording in the press release. The offense is "probationable." You've got to be kidding me. One DUI; then a second, fatal DUI. And now, four years of fooling around in the courts, she might get probation?

Who was her attorney? A McHenry County Public Defender. Ahh, the taxpayers paid for this one.

Look at Case No. 07CF000576. Six aggravated DUI/Accident felony charges. Five were nolle prossed; she pled guilty on one of them. But also look at all the other charges. You can view public records at http://www.mchenrycircuitclerk.org/

I don't even know if I can count accurately the number of court dates that driver had. I'll try. Why don't you see what number you get. I got 45. FORTY-FIVE court dates in 47 months!

When you look at the court record of dates and activity, you'll see that Judge Prather granted a motion for a fitness evaluation on 6/17/2009. Then, a whole year later on 7/2/2010, Cederholm was deemed fit for trial. Well, duh... Why didn't Judge Prather give Cederholm's lawyer 30 days to get the evaluation done? On 9/1/2010 a jury trial was scheduled for 1/27/2011 (today).

And just by some miracle, in a 402 Conference, a plea deal was worked out, and Cederholm pled guilty.

I have an opinion about the delays, games, ploys, stalls that are used to postpone final decisions. Do defendants think the courts might go out of business in the meantime? Why do judges tolerate this kind of nonsense?

February 10th may be Cederholm's (un)lucky day, when she faces Judge Sharon L. Prather at 9:00AM in Room 304 at the McHenry County Courthouse.

Let's see; driver measures 0.246, runs a stop sign, kills a person. The case should have been over in 90 days!!!

IDOT says 67% are DUI

According to a letter to the editor in this morning's Northwest Herald, midnight-to-3:00AM is the most dangerous time to be on Illinois roads. An IDOT regional occupant protection coordinator, Robert Brasky, wrote that 67% of the fatalities occurring during those hours involved 1) an impaired driver and 2) low use of seatbelts.

Law enforcement agencies all over the County, including Woodstock and the McHenry County Sheriff's Department, pester drivers on mornings and afternoons during daylight hours when they conduct seatbelt checks. Instead of focusing on the most important four of the Fatal Five violations, they pick the "low-hanging fruit." Recently five Woodstock police officers were detailed on Route 47 just north of McConnell Road during the day, where two officers in the road watched passing vehicles and the second directed violators into a parking area for ticketing.

Such a detail is not the "fault" of the officers who were assigned, so don't blame them. They are doing what they are told to do, not that they are necessarily against it. Some of them might even be asking why they aren't working such a detail when they are most likely to catch violators.

Instead of arresting drivers traveling 25-35MPH in a congested area, why not set up a similar checkpoint at 2:00AM? Just imagine how many drunk drivers they'd nab who aren't wearing seatbelts. Would the bar owners (and lawyers for the drivers who were arrested) be screaming bloody murder?

Of course, each DUI arrest might take an officer off the road for 2-3 hours, unless departments staffed up to handle the rush. Streamline the processing, coordinate with other departments including the sheriff's department and the Illinois State Police, and get serious about getting drunks off the roads.

What the heck? Just set up the checkpoint down the road from bars where serious drinking takes place. We have a few of those places right here in Woodstock. And just outside Woodstock City Limits, too.

By the way, treat all violators the same. When your eyes are bloodshot, your speech is slurred and there is a strong odor of alcohol on your breath, away you go - cuffed and in the back seat of the patrol car. No matter your name or for whom you work.

Another driver learns about BAC

Press Release from the Office of the McHenry County State's Attorney on August 18, 2009:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

McHenry County State’s Attorney, Louis A. Bianchi, is pleased to announce that Assistant State’s Attorneys Amanda Fisher and Robert Malen recently won a jury trial in the matter of People v. Robert Carlson. Carlson was charged with driving with a BAC over .08. Mr. Carlson was involved in a single car crash and transported to the hospital. During the course of the medical treatment his blood draw was .10. There were several evidentiary challenges that existed with this case: the blood draw timeline was in dispute and there were no field sobriety tests done. Also, the witnesses who had contact with the defendant, except for the arresting officer, saw no signs of impairment. The defendant will be sentenced September 18, 2009.

DUI enforcement in the County

Just last night, at the Woodstock Chamber of Commerce members' meeting, a man approached me with a story about a recent DUI on McHenry County roads.

His daughter was driving home from Woodstock one night and followed a suspected drunk up Route 47 past the courthouse and north out of Woodstock on Route 47. The drunk was all over the road. She called the Sheriff's Department and reported the drunk and then continued to follow him.

The drunk driver continued north and then west and then north again. No deputy was available to respond and intercept the drunk. The drunk then turned back east on 173 and then south again, where the drunk passed a parked police car from Hebron. The man who was telling me this story wondered whether the Hebron officer had been monitoring Sheriff's Department radio communications.

The drunk nearly caused numerous accidents. Even as the drunk passed the Hebron police car, still being followed by this man's daughter, the police car did not pull out.

I think there was a happy ending to the story. The drunk stopped within sight of the Hebron police car and began backing up in the roadway, and I think that's when the Hebron officer got involved.

At one point the dispatcher told the daughter, or the girl's father who was relaying information from his daughter, that "the deputies were very busy that night."

*************************************

This is not intended to bash deputies or dispatchers, but communication is the key in a situation like this. Motorists are encouraged to report drunk drivers. We hear this all the time. But what happens when they do?

Most motorists will not be familiar with how busy dispatchers can be or how sparsely the County might be staffed with sheriff's deputies at a given hour. Or whether a deputy is already tied up on a call or at some great distance from the drunk driver.

Concerned citizens want help when they call. I know how I have felt "brushed off", when I have called to report an impaired or reckless driver. When I want a driver ticketed and am prepared to go to court and testify, and so inform the dispatcher at the beginning of the call, I want to hear more than, "Thank you for calling." Usually, they don't ask my phone number, although I'm pretty sure it appears on their consoles. But do they save it?

One night I insisted that the dispatcher take my name and phone number and call me if they could get the driver stopped. Huntley PD was monitoring radio calls and grabbed the reckless driver. Dispatch did call me, and I drove from Woodstock to Huntley, where the driver was charged. I showed up in court for his trial, and he pled guilty.

Refresher training for dispatchers and more publicity for motorists will create a stronger partnership between concerned motorists and the sheriff's department. Deputies can play a large public relations role in this effort.

SAO nails repeat DUI offender

PRESS RELEASE

McHenry County State’s Attorney, Louis A. Bianchi, is pleased to announce that after a three day trial today a jury returned a guilty verdict in the case of People vs. Steven St. John. The defendant was observed leaving a Crystal Lake tavern and after getting into his vehicle, repeatedly collided with a parked vehicle. He was subsequently detained by officers from the Crystal Lake Police Department and charged with driving under the influence for the seventh time.

The case was prosecuted for the State by Assistant State’s Attorney’s Ryan Blackney and Simeon Kim. The conviction was for a Class X felony violation of driving under the influence of alcohol. The defendant faces a mandatory minimum of 6 years in the custody of the Illinois Department of Corrections with a possibility of being sentenced up to 30 years.

The defendant was also found guilty of a class 4 felony of driving while license revoked.

This case underscores the problem and dangers caused by repeat offenders who do not get the message that drinking and driving will not be tolerated. Those who choose to break the law will be vigorously prosecuted for the protection of the public. One death or injury caused by a DUI driver is one too many and the McHenry County State’s Attorney’s Office will prosecute those who drink and drive in violation of the law and jeopardize the public safety to the fullest extent possible.

When deputies drink, drive, lose control

In the article below titled, "If the public only knew..." several incidents are mentioned. Some I already knew about; some were new to me.

In the first, I had heard about the incident shortly after the drinking party near the end of January 2007 at the Red Mill Inn, on Lake Avenue in Woodstock. When I heard that a female deputy had been pushed down by a deputy of higher rank who was allegedly DUI, causing re-injury to her shoulder, I went to Chief Bob Lowen at the Woodstock PD and asked if he had heard about it.

Chief Lowen told me that he hadn't heard of it and that he would look into it. Later he told me that he had had an investigator look into it and that the investigator had not been able to confirm my information.

Later I was told by others that the Woodstock Police had not been called. I'm a little surprised that the WPD investigator wasn't able to learn what had happened. Maybe he was stone-walled when he approached the Sheriff's Department about it.

How does it happen that a drunk deputy can assault another deputy and not be held accountable for it, except by internal, administrative discipline?

And now that I think about the Purpose of the Merit Commission, did any discipline administered within the Sheriff's Department reach the Merit Commission? Did it have to approve suspensions that resulted from that night's "activities"?

It's time to check the online Minutes of Merit Commission meetings.

Stay tuned.

New Year's Eve Drinking/Driving

The Question: “Will (or did) you drive on New Year’s Eve after drinking any alcoholic beverage?”

The responses:
Yes: 21 (48%)
No: 23 (52%)

I intentionally omitted words like “responsibly”, “moderately” or “excessively”.

Many thanks to the 44 readers who responded. I’m glad all got home safely.

Yes, it is possible to drink and drive safely. If a driver had one glass of wine with dinner and four hours later drove six blocks or six miles home, no problem. Laws apply to drivers who are impaired, not to the driver who drinks and is not impaired or has a BAC of 0.08% or higher.

For all the intensive enforcement that was planned for New Year’s Eve, I don’t recall seeing anything in the local newspaper about results. Has anyone seen anything about the number of DUI tickets or accidents with alcohol involved for New Year’s Eve in McHenry County?

If you were out on New Year's Eve, did you see a driver you suspected of being impaired? What did you do?

New Address for Drunk Driver

Elias Sanchez, 42, of Carpentersville will have a new address for the next ten years, thanks to a judge with guts in Kane County. Sanchez was sentenced to ten years in the state pen following his eighth arrest for DUI.

According to the Northwest Herald on August 16, Sanchez was found passed out in his idling car on December 18 (gee, "only" eight months ago), and holding a bottle of rum between his knees. He was a "guest" at the Kane County Jail since, and he'll get credit for his 242 days there.

Should he get that credit? It's a common practice, but he was considered "not guilty" until his conviction, which might have been a month or two ago. Maybe he should get "credit" only from the date of his conviction?

What's wrong with our "system" that it allows a person out on the roads after six convictions and one term of supervision for DUI?

I was reminded of the drunk driver I heard about in New Mexico in 1989. He had been arrested about sixteen times and kept getting handled with kid gloves. All that changed late one afternoon, after he had been in afternoon court on a DUI charge. Four hours after being let go one more time, he ran into the judge who had released him earlier that afternoon.

Not just "ran into" (as in "encountered") him. He ran into him with his car and was drunk (again). That time he got put away. Even in New Mexico you'd better not be drunk and run into the judge who just let you go.

Driving Drunk

DuPage County State’s Attorney Jane Radostits killed herself while driving drunk on May 11.

After a bomb scare at the SA’s office others and she took off for errands and a lunch of appetizers and drinks for three hours.

The DuPage County sheriff’s report indicates that she was speeding about 85MPH in a 45MPH zone, may have been on her cell phone and was not wearing her seatbelt when she lost control of her car.

A poster in the Daily Herald wrote that many, if not most, drunk drivers pulled over are first-time offenders. Sorry, but I think he is wrong. They might be getting caught for the first time, but it’s not the first time they were driving while drunk. They have just been lucky too many times before, because there are too few cops on the road looking for drunk drivers and, when they stop one, they are tied up far too long with paperwork and then miss many more.

And what if Radostits had been stopped before she caused the wreck? Would she have flashed her ID card at the cop? Would she have been passive or belligerent? By nature of her work, might she have become at least “assertive” with the officer who stopped her? Would she have gotten a “pass”? Been taken home? Had her husband called to pick her up? Been driven home by the cop’s supervisor or commanding officer? Called one of her State’s Attorney drinking buddies to come and get her? Taken to a coffee shop to “sober up”?

Professional courtesy, don’t you know? I guess it all depends on where she got stopped and the level of the cop’s integrity.

Had I stopped her (when I was a deputy)? Ignore the State’s Attorney ID. Disarm her, if she was carrying a weapon. Roadside sobriety check. Handcuffs. Have her car towed. Off to the pokey. Breath or blood tests. Arrest, photographs, fingerprinting. Jail. Bail. Court date. Prosecution and, hopefully, conviction and jail.

What about her drinking buddies that day? Why didn’t the DuPage County Sheriff’s report dig more deeply into their own consumption of alcohol? Sitting for three hours in a restaurant, eating only appetizers? Does anyone else wonder just how much alcohol each really had to drink?

And what about right here in McHenry County? Where are the favorite water holes of the bureaucrats, politicians and cops?

According to the Daily Herald (not the Northwest Herald) on May 26, McHenry County State's Attorney Louis "Bianchi has a standing agreement with his staff: If, for any reason, they cannot drive, he personally will reimburse them for their cab fare home."

Thanks, Daddy. I presume that he will not charge taxpayers for this cost on a County expense reimbursement form. It's pretty nice that he plays "Daddy" for his employees. Of course, what employee is going to call him at 2:00AM? "Lou, I'm too drunk to drive and need a cab home" or "Lou, I was too drunk to drive last night and took a cab home. Here's the bill for $100."