Armored vehicle – Disorderly Conduct.

Look like I missed a great opportunity to learn a little about the next Kane County Sheriff last night. According to the Kane County Chronicle, there was a “forum” that covered all sorts of interesting stuff. Compelling topics like who was hired by who’s dad to be a deputy in the Sheriff’s Office in the 1970’s, and how many degrees everybody has:

Each touted their advanced degrees and extensive experience as reasons why they should be sheriff – but also exchanged a few barbs.

Kramer’s father George Kramer was sheriff from 1978 to 1986 and hired him in 1979, giving him his start at the sheriff’s office.

Kramer said he was one of 12 who passed the test and all were hired.

“We both talked about our fathers who were previously in law enforcement. At the end of the day, they are not running for Kane County Sheriff,” Mayes said.

“We talk about master’s degrees – I could make as compelling an argument about experience,” he said. “A degree without experience is nothing. But experience with a degree really allows you be able to work and continue moving forward.”

Continue reading “The Kane County Sheriff’s “Candidate Forum” That Should Have Happened.”

For a couple of reasons, I’m what you could call in interested observer of the militarization of our local police forces. First, it scares the hell out of me see how many of the local departments that can’t consistently make solid DUI arrests have no problem getting their hands on better weapons than most countries around the globe. Second, and more importantly, I’m interested in anything that affirms my belief that if the police spent less money on deadly toys and more money training themselves to deal with the mentally and developmentally disabled, we’d all be better off.

So, I do things like keep an eye on this list of small towns that the federal government has given armored ambush vehicles to. Doing that and “interacting” with Nancy Grace on Twitter is practically a full time job. Somebody has to do it, though.

.@NancyGraceHLN the only thing that shocks me is that people still watch your tired act.

— Matthew J. Haiduk (@haiduklaw) April 28, 2014

Today, during a lull in court, I decided to take a look and see if any local Kane County municipalities had soothed this apparent police “need” for war machines. Not surprisingly, google took about .2334 seconds to find one. A few years back, it looks like the City of Elgin bought this beautiful piece of reinforced steel. Continue reading ““We dropped $200k on this armored truck and there hasn’t been a murder since,” said no police department, ever.”