Racial profiling - is it? was it?

When will the issue of racial profiling at the McHenry County Sheriff's Department be put to rest? And how?

Will an outside, independent, trustworthy agency be brought in to investigate? Or will the sheriff's department investigate itself - again?

What will they find?

I remember the phone call I received one day after rollcall. "They told us, 'Just mark everybody down as white.'" Now that's a good way to end racial profiling, isn't it? Seems like some of the deputies did just that.

And I remember the statement to Judge Mahoney in Federal Court in Rockford by the sheriff's own attorney: "...Seipler was terminated for complaining about racial profiling."

Now we all know how I have complained about not being able to hear so well in McHenry County Courtrooms. Could I have "mis-heard" in Rockford? Let's see what the transcript of that fateful day in Rockford has to say:

"MS. BARTON: Because Mr. Seipler was terminated for complaining about racial profiling. ..." [Page 6, Lines 21-22]

Well, I guess the way I wrote it down right in front of Judge Mahoney was pretty accurate; right?

How many investigations were there at the sheriff's department into racial profiling, before and during the early parts of Zane Seipler's civil rights lawsuit against the Sheriff and the Department? Three?

If there is a "current" investigation, could it possibly come up with any other result than "No racial profiling"? If it did, how would they ever explain away the results of the first three "investigations"?

Wait! Breaking News: SEE http://dailyherald.com/article/20110525/news/705259788/  The Sheriff says there is no racial profiling. Four deputies just "mis-marked" citations.

Oh, my. Thank goodness...  Somehow, I think this isn't the end of things...

I'm reading an interesting book right now - Hoodwinked, by Jack Cashill. On January 24, 1980, author and progressive Mary McCarthy was a guest on The Dick Cavett Show. She had this to say about Lillian Hellman, as she answered a question from Cavett about her accusation that Hellman was "tremendously overrated, a bad writer, and a dishonest writer." She added, "I said once in some interview that every word she (Hellman) writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'" (Hoodwinked, by Jack Cashill. pp. 37-40, Nelson Currant, Nashville, Tenn.)

ICIRR hot after MCSD

This morning's Northwest Herald carried a front-page article about the Illinois Coalition for Immgrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and its interest in racial profiling by deputies of the McHenry County Sheriff's Department. It seems like ICIRR is not buying the sheriff's story that there hasn't been racial profiling at MCSD.

Imagine that.

The relationship between Sheriff Keith Nygren and ICIRR wasn't always antagonistic. It seems to me that two-to-three years ago he was on their Board of Directors. I recall seeing his name listed on the website as a Board member at http://www.icirr.org/ And then, the next time I looked, it was gone.

I have called the office of Joshua Hoyt, the Executive Director of ICIRR, to learn when Nygren was on the Board of Directors. I called about a year ago. When no one called me back, I let it slide at the time. Now I'm more interested, since the ICIRR wants the U.S. Department of Justice civil rights' division to investigate allegations of racial profiling.

When you visit ICIRR's website, you'll see that they are concerned about efforts to "stock" the ICE detention centers with detainees, because that's such a good money-maker for jail operations, whether in McHenry County or elsewhere.

Do deputies really park at Willow Brooke Apartments in Woodstock and watch for violators?

Or, worse, do they watch for a brown face to drive by, run the license plate through the computer and stop the car if there is no driver's license associated with the registered owner of the vehicle?

What's unfair about that? The deputy would have no way of being sure that the driver of the vehicle was actually the owner of the vehicle. They need to observe a violation to have probable cause for stopping that particular driver. If they get "lucky" and stop an unlicensed driver, it can be off to jail and then up to the ICE detention unit, if the driver is not legally in the U.S.

Federal case against MCSD heats up

New Motions were filed last week in Rockford in the case of Seipler v. Cundiff, et al.* These motions were for sanctions against the defendants and ask the Court for and their counsel for a variety of causes, including repeated delays in depositions, failing to tender data related to more than 5,000 traffic stops, providing false data to the Plaintiff and refusing to reproduce the Defendants for further depositions.

Seipler is also asking the Court to order payment of certain attorneys’ expenses that have been incurred because of false data provided by the Defendants.

Seipler also informs the Court that Defendants have released data bound by Protective Order, which was not to be released to non-parties to the court action; ex., the confidential deposition of Deputy Scott Milliman. (The Northwest Herald obtained a copy.)

Seipler, through his attorney, also asks the Court to require the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department to produce photographs of numerous individuals who were issued tickets in 2007 and 2008 by Deputies Jeremy Bruketta, Christopher Jones and Michelle Stevens.

The Court is also informed that 51 officers (sic) (meaning deputies) “are now being investigated for racial profiling.”

Attachment A lists tickets issued to people who are most likely Hispanics but who were recorded as being White.

In 2007, Deputy Bruketta – 60

In 2007, Deputy Matthew Matusek - 35

In 2008, Deputy Erin Falb - 77

In 2008, Deputy Bruketta - 241

* The Defendants in this case are Capt. Anton Cundiff, Lt. John Miller #1431, Lt. William Lutz, Sgt. Popovitz, Kathleen Seith (Equal Employment Opportunity officer), Keith Nygren, as Sheriff and individually, and the County of McHenry.

Red Mill - changing hands?

Peg & Ted's Red Mill appears to be changing hands. Or, at the least, the name is changing, which doesn't necessarily mean that the ownership or management is changing.

What's the Red Mill? It's a bar at 1040 Lake Avenue in Woodstock.

It's newsworthy for several reasons, number one being that it's what I would call a "cop bar." A "cop bar" is where cops hang out and "things" happen that never get reported to the police - officially. A few examples ...

In January 2007 a McHenry County Sheriff's Department sergeant had a birthday party at the Red Mill. One sergeant got so drunk he could not walk unassisted to a vehicle. His girlfriend was not so drunk, and she drove. They were followed by two other deputies, who also had been drinking. When the first car weaved off North Seminary onto an embankment and back onto the roadway, the driver of the second car flashed the headlights until the first car stopped and told the woman driver she could not proceed. (This was not a traffic stop; just one friend stopping another.) The sergeant became belligerent and pushed down one of the occupants of the second car, also a deputy. That deputy reportedly was prevented from calling Woodstock Police.

It all got covered over. When I received a call about it, I went to the Woodstock PD chief about it; he'd never heard about it. He sent a detective to MCSD, who came back empty-handed. No reports, no arrests. Did someone at MCSD lie to the WPD detective? Three supervisors at MCSD got 30-day suspensions - all handled quietly and out of the public view.

Then, in September 2009, after Sheriff Keith Nygren attempted to intimidate me in the Jewel-Osco parking lot by pulling in alongside my car in a distant area of the parking lot, he apparently told a Northwest Herald reporter that he had seen my car in the Post Office parking lot and in the Red Mill parking lot, as if I had been following him. The reporter was generous to Keith in his story and did not mention the Red Mill by name, just calling it "a restaurant." But the reporter had told me it was the Red Mill. And I told him that my car - the red Beetle - had never been in the Red Mill parking lot. Not even once!

OK, yesterday it was, in case anyone is keeping score. For about 60 seconds, while I photographed the new temporary sign above. And I have no idea whether Keith was there at that time.