Lockport PD officer in fatal crash

The Daily Herald carries an article today about an officer of the Lockport, Illinois, Police Department, who was involved in a fatal crash on the Stevenson Expressway on Sunday and who has been charged by the Illinois State Police with drunken driving and reckless homicide.

You can read the nitty-gritty at www.dailyherald.com/

What interested me about this is that the Lockport Police Department placed information promptly on its website www.lockportpolice.info/ This represents the type of transparency that police departments should have with their citizenry.

You'll have to click on "Community Bulletins" to find the article by Police Chief William Kendziora, but it's there.

More importantly, check out the homepage of the Lockport P.D. There is a letter from Chief Kendziora. Right on the homepage, he submits to Lockport residents (and the world) the 2008 Annual Report of the Police Department. He puts this information right up front, announced on the homepage and with a link to the Annual Report.

And check out the Mission Statement of the Lockport Police Department: "... to maintain social order and provide professional law enforcement services to citizens in the community within prescribed ethical, budgetary and constitutional restraints."

Take a little time to browse through Lockport PD's 2008 Annual Report. It's easy to get a picture of what is going on in Lockport.

Do we have reports like this in Woodstock? Sure do, but you have to make the trip to the library or City Hall to read them. The Woodstock Police Department reports to the City Council on every month's activity. The City Council gets a report; it goes into a file, and the public never hears about it.

But there is always hope...