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Elk Grove police chief to retire after 41 years

In a career spanning more than four decades, retiring Elk Grove Village Police Chief Stephen Schmidt has rubbed shoulders with the likes of a U.S. president and a famous TV clown, but he'll also remember interactions with the everyday people he has been sworn to serve and protect.

Take, for example, the case of a 16-year-old girl who ran away from home and got involved in a prostitution ring in Chicago.

Early on his career as an Elk Grove officer, Schmidt was assigned to find the girl and bring her back. He spent three days scouring the city's North Side before finding her at a hotel.

Years later, he was having coffee at a local diner when the waitress recognized him.

"She was the girl," Schmidt recounted during a nearly hourlong farewell speech at a village board meeting Tuesday night. "(She said,) 'I changed my life after that and you guys really helped me.'

"In this job, you never know when you're going to help people and find out how you helped them," Schmidt said.

Schmidt is stepping down Nov. 30, after 17 years as police chief and more than 41 years with the department.

He was hired at age 22, though he admits he got lost and was nearly late getting to the department to take his test. After studying to become a priest for four years at Quigley Preparatory Seminary and another year at Loyola University, Schmidt switched career tracks once he heard stories from a cousin who was an officer in the suburbs.

He rose through the ranks as a police officer, sergeant, commander and deputy chief until his appointment as the village's fourth police chief in 1999.

As "Officer Friendly" in the department's crime prevention division during the 1980s, Schmidt served as puppet master to "Officer Ollie" on "Bozo's Circus" WGN-TV show. He also directed the "Sock Hop with the Cops" TV show on Cablenet, a predecessor of local cable access channels.

Schmidt is the last active Elk Grove officer who worked the 1976 Patty Columbo murders - the most heinous crime in village history - and the last remaining cop on the force who responded to the American Airlines Flight 191 crash in 1979.

He escorted President Bill Clinton's motorcade through Elk Grove to Bensenville, but not before Clinton's unplanned 20-minute stop at a music store to play the saxophone and greet patrons.

Schmidt worked under three village managers and three mayors, during which time his department became fully accredited.

"You stood by your word, you came through for the community, and I've never had second thoughts about my first (mayoral) appointment," Mayor Craig Johnson told Schmidt at Tuesday's meeting.

Johnson is expected to promote Schmidt's successor from within the department. An announcement could come as early as next week.

Schmidt says he plans to continue teaching at Harper College and a local police academy.

Everything has seemed to come full circle for Schmidt, whose first beat assignment was patrolling a horse farm on the west side of town that is now a subdivision where he and his wife live.

He also grew up near Wrigley Field and had his heart broken by the 1969 Chicago Cubs.

"When people ask me, 'When did you retire?' I'm not going to say November 2016," he said. "I retired the month and the year the Chicago Cubs won the World Series."

  Elk Grove Village Police Chief Stephen Schmidt is stepping down Nov. 30, after more than 41 years with the department - the last 17 as chief. Gilbert R. Boucher II/gboucher@dailyherald.com, September 2016
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