Peoria Pundit

Compare and contrast.

From 1470WMBD:

A bond hearing has been delayed until Wednesday for two Peoria Police officers charged with the beating of Peoria man while on duty almost a year ago.  Officers Jerry Suelter and Andrew Smith were arrested Monday night on charges of official misconduct, aggravated battery, battery and mob action …  Three attorneys were present in Peoria County Court Tuesday afternoon when Judge Paul Gillfilan told them the officers’ bonding wasn’t until Wednesday.  No reason was given.

Why delay the bond hearing? And why not TELL people the reason for the delay?  And it’s not like “Catch and Release Kevin Lyons normally is overly concerned about keeping the accused behind bars.

Consider the case of Justin Rodgers who was arrested at an East Bluff home back in late October, but was released a few days later on a notice to appear — issued by Lyon’s office. After all, he  had only been booked on charges of possession of weapons by a felon, possession of a controlled substance and possession and delivery of marijuana.  Neighbors on East Elmhurst — who were being terrorized by this guy — were furious and afraid Rodgers would retaliate against them for the complaints that had made to police. The cops found two pounds of marijuana, 45 grams of cocaine, eight rocks of crack cocaine, body armor and five guns — but Lyon’s office gave him a notice to appear.

But two police officers — who won’t be in uniform patrolling anyway  because they are on paid leave — can’t get out on bond.

UPDATE: Now we know why Kevin Lyons wanted to delay the release fo these two Peoria Police officers: Kevin Lyons wanted an opportunity to appear in court in person and hear himself talk:

Two Peoria police officers arrested after a brutality claim will appear in court Wednesday, when Peoria County State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons said he plans to read a copy of the complaint and factual basis for their arrest.

I mean, what’s the use of charging police officers with a crime if you, a prosecutor who rarely appears in court, can’t score some media face time by showing up for a procedural hearing.

A correctional officer at the Peoria County Jail has been charged with corercing oral sex from a female inmate. He is accused of offering to arrange her release on bail in exchange for the sex, but once the act was completed and the bail was never paid, she went to authorities with her story.

I’m hoping that the sheriff’s department wouldn’t proceed with an arrest unless there was more evidence that the word of an inmate, and that they are keeping the evidence under wraps. This could include DNA evidence, video or a confession.

One of the things people forget in their outrage over police misconduct is that the people who wear badges have rights to, including the right to be presumed innocent until convicted. It wasn’t all that long ago that Peoria officers were accused of police brutality, only to have video of the incident show no such thing.

The City of Peoria recently announced that it is initiating a hiring freeze to help cope with what is sure to be a long and damaging recession. But, this is a “sensible” hiring freeze because it doesn’t include police and firefighters.

Bunk. There is nothing safe about not having enough employees to fix streets and sidewalks^*. There’s nothing safe about not having enough workers to perform routine maintenance.

To suggest that we can make do with less is to suggest we are overstaffed now. Look around the city and the number of problems we face, and tell me we don’t need more manpower, not less.

The shabbier our city looks, the more unsafe it seems. And that just drives more people out of the city, which means less tax revenue, which makes the city look even more shabby and feel even less safe. And then more people leave and the cycle continues. We need to break this cycle, not spin the wheel faster.

The reality is that we probably need more cops (and maybe more jail space, but that’s a County of Peoria responsibility) and maybe some more firefighters. And I’d say that we could use better roads and sidewalks, which in my mind means more city workers to maintain them.

What we have instead is fewer workers and status quo on cops and firefighters. Amazing.

I didn’t attend this little press conference, so I don’t know what questions were asked and what answers came forth.

Was there any thought given to, I dunno, maybe NOT raising taxes to building a much wanted, but instead NOT building the little-needed new library branch on the northernmost city limits of Peoria? Was there any thought to implementing the once-discussed plan to implement a public safety tax, which would generate revenue from Peoria’s many large non-profit institutions, many of which demand many services from the city?

Take a look at the hospitals and Bradley: ALL of them are undergoing massive building projects. They aren’t hard up for cash.

And was there any thought given to officially opposing the sales tax Caterpillar and other movers-and-shakers want to implement to help finance the downtown museum project?

This “sensible” plan is a cop out. It creates an illusion of fiscal responsibility, when in reality it lets the decision makers duck having to make really hard decisions that might be unpopular as an election nears.

Feh.

* CORRECTION: Commenter Sud O. Nym notes:

Do you even read the article anymore, or just the headline: “Included under the life safety position umbrella are police officers, firefighters and employees of the public works department.”

If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. My apologies and thanks for the correction.

C.J. has already posted about a report 1 in 4 city employees don’t live in the city. There’s already been a ton of comments.

I’ve posted about this topic before (here , here and here, among other times).

This issue drives me insane. Does the city have NO say in this matter? The way its been explained to me is that in exchange for police officers giving up the right to strike, the city has agreed to binding arbitration. And arbitrators say the city has no right to make residency an employment requirement.

I love police officers. In fact, I love them so much I want them to live next door to me. I grew up in the East Bluff where one cop who lived across the street and another who lived just down the block. Knuckleheads soon learned that anti-social behavior drew a quick and decisive response. Most chose the path of least resistance and took their stupidity elsewhere.

Of course, the son of one of these cops ended up in more than one fight with some knucklehead who took exception with his dad’s occupation.

But the thing that’s been explained to me more than once is that the main reason police officers don’t want to live in Peoria is that they do NOT want to send their kids to District 150 Schools. Can you blame them, considering that we often get school officials who side with the gun toting lawbreakers?

It’s like we’re living in a loop. Police officers don’t want to live here because of the schools. Crime gets worse because the cops don’t live here anymore. People get frightened by crime and move to the suburbs. Schools get worse because there’s no tax base. And even more cops fly to the burbs with everyone else.

I have the feeling that is we took a firehose and flushed out the criminals and their supporters from the schools, we’d see more police officers move back. Hell, we’d see a lot of law-abiding middle-class people moving back, and bringing their school-supporting tax dollars with them.

But as long as the City of Peoria has no control whatsoever over the quality of schools, we’re kidding ourselves if we expect the City of Peoria to fix the problems affecting the city of Peoria. The entity known as the Peoria School District Board of Education needs to fix these problems, but all they can come up with is that they need to build new buildings and cut the amount of time teachers have to teach.

Maybe a city takeover of the schools will become an issue in the upcoming elections. Here’s hoping.

Until that happens, I’d to see someone (*cough* state legislature *cough*) reign in the ability of arbitrators to set city policy. There is nothing unreasonable about a city making residency a requirement for employment. But I don’t see a Democrat-controlled legislature actually doing anything about it.