Fla. officers accused of falsifying crash report

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
June 3, 2010

Two former Florida police officers are in hot water for allegedly falsifying a police report of a crash in 2009 in which they were involved.

On February 16, 2009, the officer/driver rear-ended a car in Hollywood, Fla. The crash was recorded on the police car's dashboard camera and on the audiotape. An officer with 21 years of experience was recorded telling another officer how to write the report to deflect the blame away from the officer/driver. The two now-former officers were arrested yesterday.

Why is this Florida example important in McHenry County?

Because false crash reports are sometimes written here. In one crash in July 2008 a deputy started a U-turn and crashed into the right side of a car (photo, right) passing the patrol car. The County denied the claim of the driver whose car was hit, because the MCSD crash report wrongfully indicated that the woman was at fault by listing her car as Unit 1.

In another crash (this one in November 2009 and written by an Illinois State Police sergeant) a deputy started a sudden U-turn and struck the right side of a vehicle that was passing the squad car. In that report the civilian's car was listed as Unit 1, but the County paid for that damage.

The difference is that in the July 2008 the crash was investigated by a sergeant of the McHenry County Sheriff's Department, not by an officer of an independent agency, such as the Illinois State Police or a nearby town.

The County is still under demand for payment in the November 2008 crash. If it doesn't hurry up and pay the $5,300 claim, legal action is likely to commence, which will drag out all the dirty laundry in court about how the report was falsified.

Sheriff Nygren and former Undersheriff Lowery were aware of the falsification of the report, but they never required that the report be corrected so that the civilian driver could be paid for her damage.

This type of police misconduct must cease in McHenry County!