McHenry Sheriff’s Dept. investigating ticketing practices
The McHenry County Sheriff’s Office continues to conduct an internal investigation into the ticket writing practices of sheriff’s deputies to determine if the races of drivers pulled over for traffic violations were correctly documented.
An attorney for the sheriff’s office, Jim Sotos, and a patrol commander for the sheriff’s office on Monday confirmed the office is looking into the matter. The department has been examining all deputies’ tickets to determine whether there was a systemic problem in filling out tickets or whether it is limited to one or a few deputies, Sotos said in an e-mail to the Daily Herald.
“There is an inquiry into ticket writing practices and part of that involves whether there is any racial profiling occurring,” Sotos said. “There is no evidence, proof or suggestion that that is happening at any level.”
Lt. John Miller, a patrol commander, also confirmed that the department is looking into whether the races of drivers who were stopped were properly documented.
Miller said an ongoing federal lawsuit prevented him from providing more information.
The state relies on accurate information about a person’s race to determine if a department is engaging in racial profiling. If statistics on people ticketed is out of sync with the racial makeup of the municipality or county, that’s cause for concern.
Incorrectly documenting a person’s race would conceal any racial profiling.
This is the fifth time the department has investigated allegations of racial profiling since 2008. Sotos said the most recent investigation began in December after a former deputy filed a federal lawsuit against the department alleging he was fired in 2008 for complaining about racial profiling.
“It is based on information that surfaced during a lawsuit in which the deputy said others had marked several people as Caucasian who appeared to be Hispanic,” said Sotos, confirming the lawsuit involved former Deputy Zane Seipler. “The sheriff’s department initiated an investigation into whether it was an isolated incident, or on a departmentwide level. Also, a related issue was whether the forms were filled out correctly.”
Sotos, who is representing the sheriff’s office in the case against Seipler, said he did not know how long the investigation would continue or when the results would be announced.
“It is a wide-ranging task and the department will work very thoroughly through it,” he said.
Sotos added that the sheriff’s department is committed to ensuring that traffic enforcement within the department is conducted without regard to race.