Chicago officer gunned down

Chicago Police Officer Thomas Wortham IV was gunned down Wednesday night, when four punks attempted to steal his new motorcycle, while he sat on it in front of his father's home about 11:30PM.

According to a Chicago Sun-Tiimes article, when the crime started, Wortham announced he was a police officer and one of the punks shot Wortham in the head. Wortham's father, a retired police officer, shot and killed one of the robbers and injured a second.

Wortham's death has already been declared a line-of-duty death, because he announced he was a police officer and then was shot.

Open letter to Dep. Eric Woods

Eric,

I'm glad to hear that you are back at work. I hope you have fully recovered from the injury at the sheriff's department shooting range on March 15.

I hope that you will file a complete, written report about what happened that day. Do not be swayed by any efforts to keep you from filing a thorough report. And there should certainly be no retaliation or retribution for your doing so.

Your report is essential to understanding clearly exactly what happened that day. Please include any information given to you or directions before the SWAT exercise for your element began. And please provide as careful time estimates as you can for intervals in entry by the five members who entered the room.

I understand it might be "awkward" for you to ask to read the other reports or to submit a FOIA request to read what the other deputies and corrections officers wrote in their reports. Two of the corrections officers include one string of wording that has 71 consecutive words that are identical, including non-standard punctuation. If you want to read them without requesting them internally or by FOIA, I shall be pleased to make my copies available to you. Feel free to have someone contact me for copies.

If anything smacked of hazing, indoctrination or initiation to SWAT, please include anything you know about it. You can either confirm or dispel rumors about this.

The carelessness involved that day must be addressed by senior management and the Sheriff. Lt. Cedergren's summary, written on the day of your injury, says you entered the room and then Hart entered the room. Three other deputies, including one sergeant, entered the room.

The positioning of the vicious-dog target on a steel frame was dangerous to all in the room, especially since it was placed so close to the door. Did you know it was there before you entered? Were you told not to shoot on it but, instead, to go left away from it?

The only way to prevent a future serious-injury incident like yours is to dissect what happened on March 15. The Sheriff and "leaders" were supposed to meet during the week after March 28 to review what happened, but there is no written documentation of any such review. Sgt. Embry, who was in the shoot room at the time of your injury, and Lt. Miller did not submit reports.

I am sure that many within the department are glad you are back. Some may be a little nervous now, if your report tells a different story.

Whitney, Summers head for Rockford

After their visit at OWC in Woodstock, Green Party candidates Rich Whitney and Scott Summers headed for Rockford via the bicycle path through Caledonia.

Left to right: Scott Summers (candidate for Illinois Treasurer, Frank Wedig (candidate for McHenry County Board, Dist. 5), Jeanne Wedig, Gus Philpott (candidate for McHenry County Sheriff) and Rich Whitney (candidate for Illinois Governor).

For information about the Green Party in Illinois, go to www.ilgp.org Use links to candidates' websites for more information about each.

Many thanks to Jeanne and Frank for the delicious (and healthy!) picnic lunch.

Whitney visits Woodstock

Green Party candidate for Governor Rich Whitney stepped off the Metra train at the Woodstock depot this morning and was greeted by Scott Summers and Frank Wedig, Green Party candidates for Illinois Treasurer and McHenry County Board District 5.

Bill Scheurer, Green Party candidate for U.S. Congress (Illinois - 8th District), was also present, although not in bicycle gear. Neither Frank nor I showed up in bicycling gear, either. The weather had improved from the near-mist at 7:00AM, and I was wishing for my bicycle by 9:30AM.

Rich, who is from Carbondale, is on a 600+ mile bicycle and public transportation tour of Illinois and was in Woodstock to visit Other World Computing (OWC), home of the large wind turbine, off U.S. 14 just southeast of Woodstock.

I rode the Metra in to Barrington and rode back with Rich, and we had a great 1/2-hour visit. When I mentioned to Rich that one of the selling points in my campaign for Sheriff here is that I am a "citizen first, cop second", he liked that. I hadn't known that he is an attorney handling civil rights and police abuse cases.

Rich was interviewed today by Stew Cohen, Cal Skinner and a Northwest Herald reporter, Sarah Sutschek.

Rich's answers to the media questions rang true. When asked about increased taxes on alcohol and gambling, he said you can't drink and gamble your way out of the State's budget crisis. Such taxes harm the people least able to pay them.

Please see the McHenry County Blog, Northwest Herald and Daily Herald for full stories about Rich's visit to Woodstock. Rich and Scott bicycled to OWC, and Bill and Scott may have joined them there.

No Parking Any Time

What does "No Parking Any Time" mean? Not much.

Recently the City of Woodstock took out two parking places on Church Street at Jefferson Street, in order to give pedestrians a fighting chance of crossing Church Street without ending up in Centegra Hospital. The parking spaces had been there for years, even though State law prohibits parking within 20 feet of a crosswalk at an intersection.

So Woodstock removed two parking places by posting "No Parking Any Time" signs.

The next step should be to paint no-parking lines on the pavement or a yellow curb to make it clear to drivers that they are about to park in a no-parking zone. I can see (sort of) where it might be possible to miss seeing one of the signs while a driver is still in his car. Once he has exited his car, he ought to be at least curious about the sign and signpost right alongside his car.

Do the police ticket violators? Not enough yet to cause word to spread. You'd think that a merchant would warn his customer who had just parked there, but maybe not. It's no skin off his body? Well, maybe it is, if a customer gets mad enough and stops shopping there.

Take a Whiz(zer) home

Recently I met Ralph Westman at a Woodstock City Council meeting. Ralph is the owner of Woodstock Whizzer Works, located at 692 McHenry Avenue (Route 120), Woodstock.

What is the Whizzer? It's an electric bicycle. I didn't ride one, but I believe you pedal it to get going and then the motor can kick in and take you for a ride.

Thanks to a 2009 change in state law, electric- and gas-powered bicycles are not treated as "vehicles" under the state law, when operated at speeds under 20MPH. Will they go faster?

Ralph custom builds Whizzer motors, which can propel you down the roadway at speeds up to 70MPH. Me, 70MPH on a bicycle? No way!

Not many towns have a Whizzer dealership. No town has a Whizzer Master like Ralph Westman.

Check out http://www.woodstockwhizzerworks.com/ and go by to talk with Ralph about adding a Whizzer to your stable. If you want to call and be sure he'll be there, ring him on 815.338.1838

Injury investigation whitewashed

Was the investigation of the Woods' shooting injury at the McHenry County Sheriff's Department range whitewashed?

Deputy Eric Woods was injured on March 15, when a bullet ricocheted off a steel target during a SWAT exercise at the shooting range.

On March 28 a Northwest Herald reporter, in the first media report of the injury, wrote that "Range officers, leaders and Nygren will review what happened..."

Rumors abound that the SWAT exercise was not run in the normal manner and that Woods was being subjected to hazing, indoctrination or initiation as a new SWAT team member. Upon re-reading the March 28th article, that possibility became clearer. The reporter wrote, "Deputy Eric Woods entered the room first ... Deputy Michael Hart ... entered the room a few minutes later."

Deputy Morrow's summary and Lt. Cedergren's summary do not state that, so there must be at least one more report that wasn't provided in response to my several FOIA requests.

What happened to the Sheriff's review after March 28? The "leaders" did not document their "review", if there even was one. Why would the leaders and the Sheriff meet to review a serious incident resulting in injury of a deputy and not create a written record of their investigation of the incident?

Lt. Cedergren wrote a summary on March 15 - the same day as Woods was injured. That summary is so incomplete as to be worthless. He wrote that Dep. Woods entered the room and then Dep. Hart came into the room. No mention of the three deputies who entered the room between Woods and Hart. No mention of the number of rounds fired. No mention of the elapsed time between Woods' entering the room and Hart's entry. No critique of the obviously "coordinated" reports written by the corrections officers. Two of those had 71 consecutive words that were identical!

And still there have been no written reports submitted by Deputy Woods, Sgt. Embry or Lt. Miller. Why not?