2007 tip was true!

Sometimes a day can just not get any better.

The new blog on the block is The Real MCSO Exposed, and you can read it at http://www.realmcsoexposed.blogspot.com/

What made my day today? Several times I have written about a drinking party (MCSD deputies) at the Red Mill Inn (under its prior ownership) in January 2007, after which a deputy was injured when pushed down by another deputy when she tried to prevent him from driving while intoxicated.

On the new blog, documents were posted last night under the headline, "Battery, DUI and more". The documents are a five-page report, dated February 6, 2007 from EEO Kathleen Seith to Sheriff Nygren. She details what happened.

The part I didn't know about was that warnings had been given to command deputies before that drinking party on January 27, 2007. The party was only four days after Deputy Anderson had crashed his off-duty squad car while DUI in Crystal Lake, and the Department was concerned about media attention. And with good cause.

Go to http://www.realmcsoexposed.blogspot.com/ and then scroll down to "Battery, DUI and more." Double-click on each page to enlarge it. After reading it, click on the Back button on your browser to return to the article, scroll down a little, and repeat the clicks to enlarge each page.

Why does this incident still interest me, even now, four years later? After getting a tip about that party, I contacted Chief Lowen at the Woodstock Police Department, because I had heard that the female deputy who got pushed down by her supervisor (all this is off-duty) had wanted to report it to WPD and was prevented from doing so. Chief Lowen didn't know anything about it, and he told me later that he had sent a detective to the McHenry County Sheriff's Department. The detective returned empty-handed, the Chief told me; i.e., the detective was told nothing like that had happened.

Funny how the truth always comes out. It's certainly regrettable when a county sheriff's department withholds information from a major police department about crimes involving its own deputies.

In fact, it's more than "regrettable".

Thanks for the author of this new blog! You are providing a great service to residents of McHenry County.