3 Waukegan cops pulled over, allowed to get rides
Libertyville police allowed a Waukegan officer to call for a ride home even though he registered a blood alcohol level more than twice the legal limit during an early morning traffic stop, video and audio recordings obtained by the News-Sun show.
The case is the third example of law enforcement officers in Lake County allowing fellow officers in 2017 to get a ride home and have their vehicles moved for safekeeping rather than face a tow after being pulled over or found passed out behind the wheel, according to records obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Police stopped Waukegan police officer Daniel Ramirez for speeding just before 3 a.m. Nov. 12, 2017, the report by the Libertyville police shows.
Ramirez did not have a driver’s license with him but provided a U.S. passport and his Waukegan Police Department ID, according to a squad car’s dashcam audio and video footage the News-Sun obtained in response to an open records request.
Libertyville police Officer Richard Kelly, who stopped Ramirez, said he smelled alcohol on the driver’s breath, according to the footage. He attempted a portable breath test three times, and another officer said in a phone call with Libertyville police dispatch that he registered a blood alcohol level of 0.17, according to video and audio recordings. That is more than twice the legal limit of 0.08.
“I hate to give the guy — he blew a 0.17,” the officer said during the phone call. “We’re not going to give him a break if he’s claiming to be an officer and he’s not an officer anymore.”
One of the Libertyville officers contacted the Waukegan Police Department to verify Ramirez’s status as a police officer, according to the recordings. After his status was confirmed, Ramirez was allowed to take an Uber home, and the Libertyville officer parked his car for him, according to the video footage.
Ramirez, who was not charged, declined to comment.
The stop was similar to a 2017 stop in which a Lake County sheriff’s deputy allowed Waukegan police Deputy Chief Gabriel Guzman to call for a ride after he was stopped for suspected speeding and weaving while driving home from a local festival, as reported by the News-Sun in December 2017.
Earlier that year, in February 2017, a rookie officer in training for Waukegan was found “passed out behind the wheel of his car” and was given a ride home by a Waukegan police sergeant, according to a personnel report the NewsSun obtained in response to
Three stops
Three Waukegan Police Department employees were allowed to call for a ride or were given a ride home following traffic stops in 2017, according to dashcam video and records obtained by the News-Sun through Freedom of Information Act requests. Location: Northwestern Avenue, just north of Sunset Avenue, Waukegan
Description: Waukegan police Sgt. Gerald Dixon responded to a report of a vehicle half off the road with a man slumped in the driver’s seat. Dixon drove the man, a rookie Waukegan police officer at the time, home.
Result of internal investigation: The rookie officer received a verbal reprimand and was required to complete an alcohol evaluation. He was not hired following his probationary period. Dixon received counseling about following the department’s body camera policies.
Location: Old Grand Avenue in Gurnee Description: Location: Description: an open records request.
While the Libertyville and Waukegan officers who conducted the stops were not found to have violated department policies in deciding to let the other officers go, both the Lake County sheriff ’s deputy and his supervisor received counseling and training and were disciplined following their decision to let Guzman call for a ride home.
J.T. Griffin, the chief government affairs officer for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, said he doesn’t know the specifics of the Ramirez case, but he said in cases where officers may not have enough evidence to gain a conviction, it’s important to get the potentially impaired driver off the road and thinking twice about driving under the influence ever again.
“A 0.17, I mean, that’s a huge amount of alcohol,” Griffin said. “That’s well over twice the legal limit of 0.08. At that point, somebody is very impaired, and there’s no excuse for letting somebody like that off the hook.”
Police officers have more organizational solidarity than almost any other profession, meaning they’re much more likely to see each other as part of a team rather than individuals, said Kate Levine, an assistant professor of law at St. John’s University.
It can lead to an “usagainst-them mentality,” the so-called “blue wall of silence,” the refusal to testify against one another and the desire to protect fellow officers, said Levine, who has written about the formal ways the system grants police officers preferential treatment.
“To see this sort of favoritism … toward other police officers, combined with this harshness toward underserved and overpoliced populations, makes that dichotomy all the more problematic and stark,” she said. She said it’s impossible to know how often incidents like these happen, or how often drivers are let go because they’re police officers.
However, Libertyville police Chief Clint Herdegen said it’s not unusual for police to allow a driver to call for a ride. Moving a car also happens on occasion if, for example, it’s near a legal parking spot.
He said he knows there are “countless examples” of similar situations involving nonpolice officers that also have not resulted in arrests, and the decision on whether to arrest someone in a traffic stop is ultimately up to the officer.
“There’s a lot of discretion,” Waukegan police Chief Wayne Walles said. “The officer can make that decision, and what each individual officer uses in decision-making is as different as every officer is different.”
When asked whether a civilian motorist suspected of driving under the influence had the same chance of being let off the hook as a police officer, Walles said it’s up to the officer and whether reasonable suspicion exists.
Levine stressed that she doesn’t recommend taking away that discretion. She worries the system is already too geared toward harshness.
“I’m just always afraid will we say, ‘Oh, they should have less discretion to not charge their buddy.’ Well, OK, that also gives them less discretion to not charge whatever, the kid they find with enough marijuana to arrest them and don’t,” she said.
The Libertyville Police Department conducted an internal investigation that looked at whether Ramirez received preferential treatment and whether the department’s policies were followed, Herdegen said.
The investigation found that neither Kelly nor the sergeant who also responded violated department policies, though the investigator did identify areas where the officer could receive additional training, according to a memo by Herdegen summarizing the investigation’s findings.
Herdegen said he doesn’t know what specific information the officer had in Ramirez’s case, and a portable breath test is just one piece of information an officer may use in making that call.
A portable breath test may not be admissible evidence, but it shouldn’t be so far off that a result like 0.17 should be disregarded, Griffin said.
In fact, Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran, whose office disciplined an officer after investigating one of the identified traffic stops, said the amount of discretion available should change once a portable breath test comes back with a result like 0.17.
While Curran said he doesn’t like to be “Monday morning quarterbacking other agencies” and described Herdegen as a “very good chief,” he said his department would have responded to the situation differently.
“When we don’t police our own and we give passes to these people, we endanger the safety of all the other people on the road, and we lose credibility as an institution, as a profession,” Curran said.
Departments face “tough decisions” in these cases, Curran said, pointing to an instance during his tenure when a sheriff ’s deputy was involved in a serious crash.
The Lake County sheriff’s deputy was charged with driving under the influence and had his conviction suspended pending a year of supervision, according to court records.
The deputy involved in the 2010 crash was not fired and received a 30-day unpaid suspension, said Sgt. Sara Balmes, a spokeswoman for the sheriff ’s office.
Before Curran was elected, he said the Lake County sheriff’s office would never charge one of its own, and he’s worked to change that culture, Curran said.
John Petrillo, the county’s chief of law enforcement and community services, said policies on officer discretion are helpful tools implemented during the accreditation processes for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies and the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police. They guide decision-making and advise officers to ask whether a decision is reasonable, defensible and accomplishes a purpose.
“Most departments should have a model policy that defines authority, and discretion, and alternatives to arrest,” Petrillo said.
Ongoing training and software that monitors whether deputies have reviewed updated policies also help, Undersheriff David Hare said.
“We don’t subscribe to a ‘Serpico’ culture, if you will,” Curran said, referring to the 1973 film about the New York Police Department. “Chicago had that culture. A lot of larger departments had that culture, where essentially we take care of our own and it doesn’t matter what bad stuff they do.”