MCSD Citizen's Police Academy details (sort of)

A few details of the McHenry County Sheriff's Office Citizen's Police Academy are beginning to shake out. Not too many, though.

In response to a FOIA request, the Department released photocopies of the same Identification Card given to graduates and of the Certificate of Achievement given for “successful completion” of the program.

The ID card is the size of a business card. The photocopied portion did not indicate whether the person's name is entered on the front of the card. The back side states that the card is the property of the Sheriff's Office and, if found, should be placed in any U.S. Mailbox. It doesn't include wording that the U.S. Postal Service should route it to MCSD or that postage is guaranteed.

The application for the Citizens [sic] Police Academy is a simple fill-in-the-blank form and does not ask the Applicant to indicate his or her reason for wanting to attend. The Waiver of Liability is a straight-forward CYA form that presumably releases MCSD, the Sheriff, and the County from any and all of everything.

The Applicant must sign permission for a background check. No one is eligible to attend who is a felon or has been convicted of “certain (unnamed) misdemeanors and/or traffic offenses”  or anyone who has been arrested by the McHenry County Sheriff's Office.

A consent form is to be signed by the applicant for the Civilian Ride-A-Long. I got a good laugh out of that one. What is a Ride-A-Long? A long what? Trust me; it wasn't a typo. The word, spelled with two hyphens, appears ten times on the one page!

It's “ride-along”.

How did participants get in? A one-page letter, signed by the Sheriff and Undersheriff, was sent to hand-picked people. The letter, dated August 31, 2012, described the program, indicating it would begin on September 20. The application was included and had to be returned by September 12.

So much for a taxpayer-funded program being open to the public.