McHenry County Blog

McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren got a headline saying he was in favor of a concealed carry law in today’s Northwest Herald, as you can see below.

Headline: "Sheriff Nygren supports concealed carry law."

I’d try to find the NW Herald article that I believe quoted a Crystal Lake Police Chief Keith Nygren as being against concealed carry in the 1990’s, but, with the NW Herald charging for its archives, that’s expecting too much. (And I didn’t buy today’s paper. I’m a second hand user.)

Beyond what I remember as a flip-flop from when I was state representative, Woodstock Advocate writer and Green Party sheriff’s candidate against Nygren, Gus Philpott, wrote in a comment about Nygren’s speech to the McHenry County Concealed Carry Association that

“Nygren was at the meeting and presented the position of the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association, which is to support concealed carry; however, at no point did Nygren ever say that HE supports concealed carry.

“What’s your position, Keith?”

It appears that question has been answered in today’s NW Herald.

But, as they say, actions speak louder than words.

Democratic Party challenger Mike Mahon points out that Nygren will not let about 230 his own trained and certified employees carry their weapons when off duty.

You know how you hear about off-duty Chicago policemen interrupting crimes while on their own time. They have guns.

Back when I was state representative, I was told of an Illinois Department of Corrections Office who was shot after he got off work by a gang banger friend of one of the inmates at either Joliet or Stateville prisons.

Illinois stupidly does not allow correctional officers to take their weapons home to defend themselves with. They have to lock them up in the prison. They can’t even have their own guns in the prison parking lot.

The result was that one correctional officer died on his way home to his Chicago neighborhood.

I introduced a bill, got it out of committee and to the House floor to rectify that situation. No help from the Illinois State Rifle Association. The legislation would have allowed correctional officers, both state and county, plus retired law enforcement officers, to carry handguns while not on the job.

My logic was that there would be that many more good guys on the street should some gang banger or crook or just plain nutcase decides to do something in their presence.

The State Rifle Association sat on its hands as a drunken Peoria area Democratic state representative took aim after a well-lubricated dinner.

The ISRA didn’t want any bill passed unless everyone was included.

And my bill lost.

Now, Mahon is calling out Nygren about allowing his own jailers and other trained and certified employees to be armed while off duty.

“Let them carry weapons while off the job,” Mahon is, in effect, saying.

“The community will be safer and you won’t be subject to the charge of being a hypocrite.”

I repeat, those were not Mahon’s words. You can read his words in his press release below:

The following statement was released Tuesday by McHenry County Sheriff candidate Mike Mahon:

Mike Mahon

“I find it interesting that Sheriff (Keith) Nygren has appeared to have gotten religion recently with respect to ‘concealed carry,’ when in fact he has had the capability to reinforce crime fighting in McHenry County for over a decade and has refused to do so.“

I am speaking of the over 230 trained McHenry County correctional and court security officers and process servers whose ability to carry firearms outside of the scope of their official duties has been denied by the same Sheriff Nygren who now states, according to a Northwest Herald article published March 2, 2010, that ‘when something happens to you or your family…the likelihood that there will be a policeman standing next to you is probably not very great’ and therefore that ‘private citizens who have guns could prove especially helpful in circumstances in which police were not instantly at the scene of an incident.’

“Now that the issue of concealed carry in Illinois might be getting some traction, Sheriff Nygren seems to be signaling some lukewarm support.

“But for years and years he could have permitted his officers, who have all completed the State of Illinois Law Enforcement mandatory firearms training course, who work for his office and whom he could keep a close eye on, to carry firearms not only as they travel to and from work but also when off-duty and in the community.

“The list of mass killings like Columbine, Virginia Tech and, closer to home, Northern Illinois University, unfortunately continues to lengthen. An off-duty officer in Utah was instrumental in halting an incident there within the last several years.

“But in McHenry County the additional cavalry are unarmed.

“I, for one, will be far more ready to believe in Sheriff Nygren’s new-found conversion to concealed carry if he immediately lifts his own restriction on the sworn, trained, and certified officers under his command.

“I will also ensure the people of McHenry County that one of my first acts as Sheriff, after a thorough review of personnel records, will be to allow the sworn and trained officers of the Sheriff’s department to carry their firearms off duty.

“This will instantly put hundreds more trained and vetted public servants on the street during their off-duty hours which will therefore bring a higher level of public safety to all citizens of the county.”

For more information contact the Mike Mahon for Sheriff Campaign at 847.515.4772.

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I will again point out that there was a woman who had Armed Forces training who was sitting in the front of the NIU auditorium when the massacre occurred.   She could have taken out the little squirrel who did the shooting from the stage, but, instead, she got killed.

NIU is what my campaign manager for governor (when I ran in 2002) called “a protection free zone.”

One more thing.  In John Lott’s “More Guns, Less Crime,” he points out the harder laws make it for people to obtain their own personal protection in the form of a gun, the less likely it is for those people really in need of such protection will be able to qualify.

So, if you want to discriminate against inner city residents, make the hurdles high.

Vince Gaddis

The McHenry County College Student Peace Action Network continues to bring provocative programs to Crystal Lake.

The next one will be bout privatized prisons, to be held on March 4th.

I wonder if the local version of this phenomenon will be discussed.

What’s that?

The Sheriff’s Department’s making money by housing illegal immigrants on the top floor of the county jail.

The press release is below:

MCC’S STUDENT PEACE GROUP TO HOST EVENT

ON PRISON INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

[Feb. 23, 2010.Crystal Lake, IL]  The McHenry County College Student Peace Action Network (SPAN) will host an informational seminar featuring Dr. Vincent Gaddis on March 4th, 2010 at 7:00pm in the College’s Conference Center.  The event is titled

“The United States: Leading Jailer of the World.”

According to Human Rights Watch, the United States incarcerates more people than any country in the world, including the far more populous nation of China.  In 2008, the American penal system held more than 2.3 million adults, China was second with 1.5 million and Russia a distant third.

The United States leads not only by the sheer number of inmates but in the rate at which it incarcerates its citizenry, outpacing nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia.  In Germany, 93 people are in prison for every 100,000 adults and children whereas in the United States, the rate is eight times higher or 750 per 100,000.

As incredible as it sounds, 1 in 100 adults are now locked up in America and for Hispanic and black men, imprisonment is far more prevalent.  Dr. Gaddis will analyze the structural flaws within our system that lead to these astounding statistics.

Imprisonment has become the answer to many of the social problems rooted in poverty.

The practice of locking up the poor from racially marginalized communities has become big business.

What once was considered government work has increasingly been turned over to private contractors, creating a monstrous “prison industrial complex” whose profit depends on people to punish.

Dr Gaddis calls for a revolution – “a revolution in values.”  He persuasively argues that what we need is not new prisons, but a powerful movement for social transformation in health care, housing, education, drug programs, jobs, and education.

The event is part of SPAN’s Current American Issues Information Seminar Series. SPAN is made up of students promoting peace nationally and locally through action and education. The event is co-sponsored by Pax Christi and the McHenry County Peace Coalition. The event is free and open to the public.

The college is located at 8900 U.S. Hwy. 14, Crystal Lake.  For more information, contact the MCC Student Activities Office at (815) 455-8772.

Daily Herald reporter Chuck Keeshan wrote a story on Sheriff Keith Nygren’s jail having making it more expensive to give money to inmates and ICE detainees.

McHenry County Blog broke the story last Wednesday.

Keeshan’s article about the complaint of Crystal Lake resident David Warren, who is a member of the Secular Franciscan Order of the Catholic Church has one paragraph that caught my attention:

“Deputy Corrections Chief Patrick Firman said the change was necessary for the jail to abide by state regulations governing how it handles inmates’ money.“

It is true that the Illinois Department of Corrections regulates local county jails. In my experience, this regulator has cost local taxpayers to spend money they would not otherwise have spent.

But, according to DOC Public Information Officer Januari Smith, this is not one of them.

I called her up and asked if this change by the McHenry County Jail had been required by state officials.

“We don’t oversee how they take in money,” she told me.

“We don’t oversee this particular part of a county jail.”

Maybe Firman was referring to a different state regulator.

No story from the Northwest Herald on the subject yet.

An October 26th memo from Sheriff Keith Nygren’s Chief of Corrections Daniel Sedlock announces the imposition of new, higher cost requirements for those wanting to help inmates and detainees financially.

Crystal Laker Dave Warren has been a 10-year, regular visitor and helper of those behind bars. His jail ministry has regularly written checks so the Sheriff’s Department can buy such personal items as soap, shampoo, lotion, and snacks that fit their cultural diet.

“Under the contract, Sheriff Nygren receives a (portion of the purchase price-original word redacted) from the vendor for all (the approximately $15,000 of) commissary purchases…a source of income for our County Jail,” he wrote one one Crystal Lake donor.

“That revenue stream will disappear if we can’t present a lump check.”

The memo that you can see below(click to enlarge) will require such humanitarian people to pay the cost of a money order or a $5 transaction fee for each prisoner or detainee.  The typical amount given each person behind bars is $10.

“It effectively removes the humanitarian aid portion of our ministry leaving only pastoral care,” Warren wrote John Morrison, Assistant Secretary of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“It is impractical for us to buy postal money orders for each destitute refugee/detainee, then address an envelope, and pay 44 cents to mail to each of them. That would be about 1500 money orders, stamps and envelopes annually!”

“For the last 10 or 11 years, we simply list(ed) each detainee’s number and name on lined paper. After each visit, we give the lobby officer this list and our Jail Ministry check made out to McHenry County Jail, i.e., $10 for each person listed,” he wrote a donor.

“For some time now, as a courtesy, we have allowed program volunteers to being in single checks to be distributed to multiple inmate/detainees housed at the McHenry County Jail.

“Unfortunately, because of an ever increasing population as well as a growing number of organizations requesting to place funds on a detainee’s account, this practice has become administratively burdensome for our staff.

“In addition, we continue to be faced with accreditation standards and regulations requiring a strict accounting of these funds and how they are distributed.”

Sedlock announces that the new, more expensive procedures will start on November 1st, five days after the issuance of the memo.

“We surely appreciate the services and support you provide to the inmate/detainees in our custody. We apologize for the inconvenience we know that this will cause some of your, but trust that you will understand our need to make these changes,” Sedlock concludes.

The memo disturbed Crystal Laker Dave Warren, a member of a Catholic religious lay order about which you can read more here and active in the Jail Ministry of McHenry County.

Besides his letter to the Assistant Secretary of ICE, the Crystal Lake resident has written others involved in the ministry, including a Cary  pastor thaking him for “your tithe of $528.27.”

He notes, “There are no administrative costs in this ministry. Even our Home State Bank checking account is free. Be assured that your entire donation to goes directly to recently arrived, destitute detainees held in McHenry County Jail.”

It notes that McHenry County gets $90 per night to house the prisoners.

The “all of your contribution goes to the mission” part of the thank you letter seems destined to be re-written.

In the closing part of his letter, Warren points out that House Bill 4613 “was passed to secure more access time in jails that warehouse ICE detainees. As a result, access for our ministry visits to McHenry County Jail has been expanded from three people to at least five, our available visiting time has almost doubled from one shift to two shifts, and the days have been doubled from bi-monthly to bi-weekly, i.e., from two to four visits each month. We are still restricted from going into the cell blocks as we were allowed to do for many years previously.”

No local official likes being forced by the General Assembly to do something he doesn’t want to. That’s for sure.

Sunday’s Chicago Tribune had a front page story that seems to have been inspired by two Catholic nuns not being able to talked to illegal aliens detained there.

It seems Sheriff Keith Nygren thought that the services of his award-winning chaplain, Michael Love, were sufficient, but Sisters Pat Murphy and JoAnn Persch didn’t.

Rebuffed, the two champions of immigrant rights went to Springfield and got state law changed so they could provide conversation and counseling to those detained.

The story, by Margaret Ramirez, relates how Sister Pat Murphy buttonholed former Senate President Emil Jones (D-Chicago) and laid a guilt trip on him.

The bill passed both houses of the Illinois General Assembly without a negative vote.

Interspersed in the story are the type of separation stories that played out in my legislative office during the 1990’s, especially after INS raided the Crystal Lake Holiday Inn. Fortunately, I had Pete Castillo as my legislative assistant to handle such cases. The one I remember best is a man’s coming in with a young child and a baby after his wife had been shipped to some regional detention center before the McHenry County Jail started accepting detainees.

In one of the two photos in the story, you can clearly see “McHenry County Jail” is written on the back of the orange jump suits.

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I thought that I and the young Chinese politicians I took to the McHenry County Jail two years ago as part of an exchange trip arranged by the American Council of Young Political Leaders were being show the immigration detention floor until I read the comments under this story.

Now I’m not sure.

The Northwest Herald did a front page story on fathers in McHenry County Jail. I scanned it at the time, but that was before I lost my images in a hard drive crash.

It was a good article, to which I would link if the NW Herald’s search engine was adequate.

I was reminded of the underlying story I wanted to write by this May 26th Chicago Tribune story, entitled,

No job,
but child
support
still due

I tried to find that article by typing in all but the last two words in the title and nothing popped up. Didn’t matter, because the Tribune hides its articles after 30 days.

And it doesn’t matter for the purpose of this story.

Before my friend Mark Enghstrom was diagnosed with a fast spreading cancer, he was in one of the McHenry County divorce wars. Having endured one myself, we discussed the details too often.

He wanted as much time with his kids, Luke and Tabatha, as he could get. I remember one time he took them on a vacation in the almost broken-down panel truck he used for his carpentry and painting jobs. They always went camping. He could never afford a motel room.

I think they went to Iowa the time I am remembering his having told me about.

In any event, they were in farm country and he saw a farmer on a tractor. Mark offered him $15 to let Luke drive it. The farmer accepted it. Luke learned to drive a tractor in junior high school, just as farm kids do.

During the hearing on child support, he was so proud that he had just gotten a job selling insurance for some “Christian” insurance agent.

The $35,000 he testified to was not from commissions he had earned; it was a starting stipend.

And, guess what?

It disappeared when Mark called the boss on some unethical behavior.

But, did the child support decrease?

Oh, no.

It just kept mounting up as his carpentry and painting work did not bring in anything close to $35,000 a year.

(And that, a friend reminded me, is an understatement to Mark’s abilities. He was a craftsman. Look at the cove molding in our kitchen and you’ll agree. Ask my wife about the discussion of color for our bedroom and downstairs bathroom, where you can still seen a shoe mark as he distressed the striped faux French design he created. He used to call me “a handyman’s delight.”)

In any event, Mark’s ex-wife’s attorney seemed to think she could wring money out of Mark’s rock. She kept taking him to court again and again and, of course, Mark could never pay what he owed in child support, let alone the lawyer’s fees for taking to court repeatedly.

Eventually, the lawyer asked that Mark be tossed in jail for not paying the child support.

Right along with the violent criminals.

The irony is that Mark had just started a job that would pay decent money. Naturally, he lost it because he was in jail.

At the time I wondered about the logic of Judge Marty Zopp’s expecting a father to pay back child support while incarcerated.

I think Mark was in jail at least a month. (He was put in jail twice, for this offense, once earlier for not very long.)

At one of the status hearings, I interjected myself into the proceedings, saying I had a job for him.

The judge admonished me for speaking out of turn, but let Mark out that day.

We went to the McHenry County Fair and had lunch. How pale his skin was from all those days without sunlight.

Anyway, that’s what the two stories about Dad’s not being able to pay their child support when they lost their jobs brought forth from my memory bank.

Mark died in 2005 after having left an indelible mark on our family. My son sometimes says he “hates God,” because of Mr. Mark’s and South School Librarian Mrs. Pearl’s deaths. I see his handiwork in the kitchen, bedroom, living room and both bathrooms. The last thing he was able to do was put up the towel rack in the downstairs bathroom after painting it. It pretty amazing how often his craftsmanship leads my brain to think of him.

The irony is that the attorney who ran up all the bills trying to collect child support that did not exist did not get paid.

= = = = =
In the photos with people, you see Luke and Tabatha with their father Mark Engstrom.

A major article stuffed with information about McHenry County law enforcement officials’ treatment of Latinos stopped for traffic offenses appears on The Chicago Reporter’s web site.

Written by Fernando Diaz, the article starts with the Crystal Lake arrest of 2003 Honduran immigrant Osman Maldonado by a McHenry County Sheriff’s deputy.

The cigarette run resulted in the deputy’s finding a fake green card after examining Diaz’ wallet.

That led to a felony arrest for possession of fraudulent documents for 25-year old employed father of two.

After thirty days in jail Diaz plead guilty to a misdemeanor. On that same day the sheriff’s department took him to immigration court. With an electronic ankle device, he now faces deportation.

The next mention of McHenry County is way down in the article and the Zane Seipler suite against Sheriff Keith Nygren is the focus. See

“Driving While Black” or “Profiling Caucasians?”

What Ex-Deputy Sheriff Zane Seipler Says the Department is Doing Wrong

Discrimination Suit against McHenry County Sheriff’s Department Makes Fox TV

According to the article, in his suit, Seipler, whose wife is Mexican, Seipler

“alleged that the office is targeting Latinos—proxy for undocumented immigrants, he said—for traffic stops.

“Seipler said things changed soon after the county began cooperating with the immigration agency in 2006 and started providing space for immigrant detainees at the McHenry County Jail—for $85 per detainee a day. Seipler said he began noticing the pattern that more Latinos drivers were being arrested. ‘The goal was to keep the immigration wing packed,’ he said.”

Seipler asked for an investigation and was eventually fired, the article says, for “violating rules and regulations.”

Seipler sued last November.

Nygren told the reporter that Seipler’s allegations, which were investigated multiple times, are completely false and offered these direct quotes:

“I’ve been sued a lot [during] 42 years, [but] this is the worst that I have ever seen leveled at anybody with no basis in fact.

“I’m not going to tell you we don’t have people with prejudices and bias, but if we had someone enforcing the law based upon their bias, we would take action. We would not tolerate it.”

What do the statistics show?

The Chicago Reporter dug out this information:

“Since 1996, law enforcement agencies in McHenry County have filed charges against about 3,000 individuals for driving without a license and, since 1999, filed more than 500 charges for those who were in possession of fraudulent documents, according to the Reporter’s analysis.

“But many of these charges have come from only a handful of communities. Five communities, including Harvard, Woodstock and Crystal Lake, racked up 70 percent of all charges.”

How big is the problem?

State Rep. Edward Acevedo estimated that there are 250,000 “undocumented” driving without licenses or insurance.

The article also tells of suburban communities seeking 287(g) authority to enforce immigration law.

McHenry County Blog wrote extensively of how Ohio’s Allen County Sheriff Daniel Beck enforces immigration laws with 287(g) authority. The articles can be found below:

Fighting Republican Courthouse Corruption,

Motivation for Getting Involved with the Fight Against Illegal Aliens

The Rule of Law

Enforcement Techniques, specifically, how 287(g) training is not necessary to get started,

Idendtity Theft Enforcement,

Other Crimes by Illegal Aliens,

Terrorism and Bondage, and

The Critics

What Daniel Beck Told the Minutemen at MCC – Part 9 – What Wouldn’t Fit Elsewhere, Including Retirement Plans

Other articles about the Minuteman meeting include

“Minutemen Are Back with Sheriff Dan Beck Seminar”

“Minuteman Meeting at MCC Peaceful; Protestors Missing in Action”

“Dissatisfaction Expressed with Sheriff Keith Nygren at MCC Minuteman Meeting”

“The Goals of Mexico”

“So Many Illegals, I Could Not Get a Job”

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The top sheriff is McHenry County Sheriff Keith Nygren.

The picture next to the Sheriff Dan Beck articles is of Beck. The section of the McHenry County Jail shown is the floor rented by the U.S. Immigration Service.

A couple of teenage boys were arrested late last week for robbing the Castle Bank in Huntley on March 10th.

Seems a bit strange that they would be from Hinkley, which is straight down Route 47 and west on Route 30 in DeKalb County south of the City of DeKalb.

It’s a long way to go to rob a bank.

About 30 miles.

Matthew Reno is identified as 18 and Justin Fasel as 17 by Daily Herald reporter Lee Filas.

They are being held in McHenry County Jail unable to raise the $40,000 apiece it would take to meet the $400,000 bail that has been set.

The same two are charged with trying to rob the First Midwest Bank in Union on March 23rd.

“The big break came, (Huntley Police Chief John Perkins) said, when FBI agents in Chicago received a tip and forwarded it to Huntley officers.”

The article adds, “

He would not disclose what the tip was that led to the arrests.”

I don’t know if these two would fit any of the categories listed below by Stop Prisoner Rape, but if they do and are convicted, they are in for a world of hurt in the Illinois Department of Corrections…when preventing rape in prison is not a high priority…if one at all:

“inmates who are

• small,
• young,
• non-violent,
• mentally ill,
• gay or
• transgender,
• in prison for the first time, and/or
• lacking a gang affiliation

are particularly vulnerable to being abused while incarcerated. Detainees who have been sexually assaulted in the past are also identified as likely victims of further abuse.”

That’s pretty much what I concluded when I served on the Illinois House Prison Reform Committee.

A couple of teenage boys were arrested late last week for robbing the Castle Bank in Huntley on March 10th.

Seems a bit strange that they would be from Hinkley, which is straight down Route 47 and west on Route 30 in DeKalb County south of the City of DeKalb.

It’s a long way to go to rob a bank.

About 30 miles.

Matthew Reno is identified as 18 and Justin Fasel as 17 by Daily Herald reporter Lee Filas.

They are being held in McHenry County Jail unable to raise the $40,000 apiece it would take to meet the $400,000 bail that has been set.

The same two are charged with trying to rob the First Midwest Bank in Union on March 23rd.

“The big break came, (Huntley Police Chief John Perkins) said, when FBI agents in Chicago received a tip and forwarded it to Huntley officers.”

The article adds, “

He would not disclose what the tip was that led to the arrests.”

I don’t know if these two would fit any of the categories listed below by Stop Prisoner Rape, but if they do and are convicted, they are in for a world of hurt in the Illinois Department of Corrections…when preventing rape in prison is not a high priority…if one at all:

“inmates who are

• small,
• young,
• non-violent,
• mentally ill,
• gay or
• transgender,
• in prison for the first time, and/or
• lacking a gang affiliation

are particularly vulnerable to being abused while incarcerated. Detainees who have been sexually assaulted in the past are also identified as likely victims of further abuse.”

That’s pretty much what I concluded when I served on the Illinois House Prison Reform Committee.

Take a look at this picture of the McHenry County Jail real carefully.

I took it from the Administrative Building parking lot across the street.

I guess some of my eyesight is still OK.

Look carefully.

What is out of place?

Look at the aerial.

Could it be?

A man climbing up.

I put on the long lens.

I drove across the road.

You can see what a saw.

Or, at least what my camera lens saw.

A sheriff’s deputy and I shook our heads at each other.

The pictures can be enlarged by clicking on them.