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!

Could it happen again? (and again?)

Find the bug

Last year's Groundhog Day got wiped out by the Blizzard of 2011. There was certainly no way to drive to the Square on the morning of February 2 and, for sure, I wasn't going to strike out on foot.

Could it happen again? Would it happen again? Will it?

Two years in a row? No way. You're sure about that; right?

Road reports from Cincinnati and even Indianapolis were not encouraging this past week-end.

Are you ready for winter? Good tires on your car? All the lights working? Wipers in good shape? Heater and defroster working?

I remember a wonderful conversation on a freezing day in December 2000, when I met Kathy Larson. Does anyone know where she is now? If you know Kathy, please tell her I still have that Stetson and would enjoy hearing from her.

Which Kathy Larson (Larsen?) am I looking for? She had lived in Woodstock and Crystal Lake, maybe other areas in McHenry County. Three-four years before that, she had been in an bad auto accident. That's the Kathy Larson. Do you know her?

65,000 apply in Wisc. for concealed carry

Wisconsin residents are about to become safer.

An Associated Press article out of Madison, Wisc. says that 64,832 people have applied for concealed weapons permits. Wisconsin residents who are age 21 or older pay a $50 fee. Wisconsin expects to be tardy in completing issuance, due to the overwhelming number of applications.

My guess is that residents will be patient. After all, they've waited a long time. Not so long as Illinois residents, though.

Applicants must pass an agency background check and prove they have received some firearms training in order to obtain a permit to carry. Applications received before November 30 were supposed to be processed within 45 days. Applications received after that date are, according to state law, to be processed within 21 days.

Now imagine what will happen in Illinois. Will state officials learn from the experience of more than 40 other states, when our turn eventually comes?

Be glad you don't live in Seattle

I guess we should be glad we don't live in Seattle; at least, if we had to use the Highway 520 bridge. Just look at this scheme, as reported last week in the Seattle Times. Keep in mind; it's like there is an alternate route on surface streets...

"Tolling starts at 5 a.m. today (December 29) on the Highway 520 bridge.

"Rates vary by time of day, from $1.10 late-night to $3.50 at peak times, in each direction, for drivers with a Good to Go sticker. Others will be billed by mail for the toll plus a $1.50 surcharge. Overnight, bridge crossings are free."

Sure hope the brainiacs at the Illinois Tollway don't find out about that. They'll pull a variable rate scheme out of their hats, and you'll never know how much they are sucking out of your I-Pass account.

Did "Nothing" happen Saturday afternoon?

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.

A new year - Beth Bentley, gone 84 weeks

The old year has passed; the new year is here. Will a New Year's Resolution be to find Beth Bentley within the next 30 days?

It could happen, you know. All it would take is leaning on the people most likely to know exactly what happened to her. You start with the smallest, closest circle, and then you slowly widen the circle. You connect the dots. You identify the lies, the misdirections, the deceptions. You connect the dots.

The Woodstock Police Department has given the same, old, stale summary to the City Manager and the City Council for months, and it has gotten away with it. Why is it that the City Manager, the Mayor and the City Council have accepted a "boiler-plate" summary in the monthly Police Department report, month after month?

Why isn't some official shouting, "NO PASS! This tells us nothing about what has been done in the past month. It tells us that NOTHING has been done in the past month."

The City was successful in withholding the Police Department's file after a Freedom of Information Act Request was filed. Releasing it might interfere with the investigation. What investigation?

If it's "only" a missing person case, then let's have it. But, if it's more than that - if the police really think that criminal activity was involved with or related to Beth's disappearance - then let's hear how many people have been interviewed, how many searches have been conducted, how many police agencies are still involved, etc.

Why is the Woodstock Police Department so tight-lipped about this case?

Let's say that they really do think there was a crime here, and they have a pretty good idea who is involved. OK, so rattle a few cages. The next time (and there will be a next time) that someone in the smaller circles of friends, neighbors, family, co-workers, acquaintances gets pinched for drugs or a DUI, do NOT go for a deal. Hold out for the maximum sentence. If the person thinks that she or he will be Sheriff Nygren's guest for 364 nights, then the lips might just loosen and some important information would slip out.

Sure, the person will have lawyered up. So what? The City has a prosecuting lawyer. All you do is refuse to deal. Take the case to trial. Opportunities started slipping through fingers less than a month after Beth disappeared.

Remember when Jenn Wyatt got a ticket in June 2010, while she was driving the car (owned by Beth) in the middle of the night? She gave the deputy an expired California driver's license. Yet later, in court, she had an Illinois driver license that was valid when the ticket was issued. Just how does something like that happen? When you are issued an Illinois driver's license, you turn in your expired out-of-state license. Don't you?

And six months before that, when she got a ticket in Woodstock for a seatbelt violation, she presented her expired California driver's license, and the cop just wrote down the information, including the expired date!

Didn't he realize her license had expired? How did he overlook that? Did he feel sorry for her? Didn't a supervisor review the ticket? Did she just have such a nice smile that the cop overlooked her expired license?

Just how did she happen to come up with a valid license in court, but didn't have one when the deputy stopped her? He would have run her name through the computer system, and it would have found any valid Illinois driver's license. It didn't, so he wrote her a ticket. So, how did she get a license that was issued to be effective when she had gotten stopped in June?

Double fatality near Island Lake on 12/31?

Was there a double fatality near Island Lake on Saturday afternoon, December 31st?

About 2:30PM McHenry County Sheriff's deputies were dispatched to a house on the north side of Route 176, just east of the Fox River in unincorporated McHenry County. About 7:30PM numerous County squad cars were still there, and the McHenry County Coroner was seen leaving.

If a serious incident occurred there on Saturday afternoon, is there some good reason that there is no information, even by this time almost 24 hours later, on the websites of the two area daily newspapers?

Was the public ever in need of an alert, say, via NIXLE? If deaths occurred in that house, did deputies quickly determine that no risk to the public existed? Were autopsies conducted today? Residents should not have to wait for the Sheriff''s Department Public Information Officer to return to work on Tuesday.

In a call to the Sheriff's Department at 1:16PM I learned that no press release is available. I left a message for a command officer to call with any available information. Further information will be posted as it becomes available.

Who was the Sheriff's Department supervisor at the scene and why was there no information to the press? Who was the Deputy Coroner whose week-end was interrupted?

Where are the Sheriff and the Undersheriff? Are both out of town on this holiday week-end? At least, one of them ought to be around and running things.