Over the past two weeks the media has reported that three of the four perpetrators of last summer’s vicious attack on a 48-year-old Park Ridge man at Hinkley Park following the Taste of Park Ridge (“TOPR”) have pled guilty and been sentenced. The case against the final defendant is set to go to trial June 29 in juvenile court.

So we found it more than a little unusual to read in this week’s online Park Ridge Herald-Advocate that the Park Ridge Police Dept. had denied a Freedom of Information Act request from the H-A for copies of the official police reports from that incident (“Youngest teen charged in 2014 Park Ridge beating given probation,” June 2).

As we understand FOIA (courtesy of a “Citizen’s Guide” to FOIA published by the Paul Simon Institute of Southern Illinois University), arrest reports are subject to public disclosure under FOIA unless certain exceptions apply – the most common of which appears to be where disclosure would obstruct an ongoing criminal investigation. On the other hand, names and addresses of witnesses and/or minors are simply redacted from the reports produced.

Given the current posture of all four cases, we can’t begin even to imagine how the production of the police reports to the H-A could obstruct an ongoing investigation. By now those investigations should all be complete, and those reports would have already been produced to the attorneys for all four individuals. And the PD isn’t offering to produce the reports in redacted form.

So why is the Police Department balking?

Could it be the PD is concerned that the report(s) of not only the beating incident but also the two earlier police calls to Hinkley Park that evening might reveal merely perfunctory responses to those earlier calls? Or a delayed response to the beating call?

Up until now, the PD has kept a tight lid on what would seem to be critical information about the responses to those two earlier calls, including information we asked about in our 08.12.14 post re Chief Kaminski’s dog-and-pony show before the City Council:

• If the exact time of the officers’ arrival was so important, why wasn’t the time of their departures also important? Could it be that those departure times might show that the responding officers who “checked the area” for fireworks, alcohol, drugs, etc. really weren’t all that thorough in performing that task?

 

• Why didn’t the chief identify the time(s) and location(s) of those “other calls” the ROs supposedly had to run off to instead of staying at Hinkley and providing the kind of “police presence” central to the “community policing” the department claims to be practicing – especially on the second call, when the number of teens had inexplicably grown from 30-40 to around 75 in just 35 minutes?

 

• Why didn’t the chief talk about the reported police dispersal of more than 50 teens from the Library grounds between 9:00 and 9:30 p.m. – the ones who supposedly migrated en masse the two blocks to Hinkley and further swelled those ranks?

Our limited experience with Chief K, a longtime Park Ridge resident, suggests to us that he’s basically an honest and decent guy who has run his Department creditably. But the way this whole Hinkley situation has been FUBARed makes it seem as if the Police Dept. was neither ready nor willing to deal in any meaningful way with the mass of youths at Hinkley that night.

And rejecting the H-A’s FOIA request does nothing to dispel that impression.

As this year’s TOPR quickly approaches, the residents deserve to finally know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about how the Police Department handled – or mishandled – the Hinkley situation last summer.  That starts with the release of the police reports.

And Chief K needs to remember that it’s not the screw-up but the cover up that presents the bigger problem.

UPDATED (06.05.15). This week’s Park Ridge Journal contains a letter by Chief Kaminiski about the sentencing of two of the perpetrators of last summer’s beating of a middle-aged Park Ridge man in Hinkley Park following that night’s Taste of Park Ridge festivities (“Park Incident, Outcome, Tough Lessons To Learn,” June 3). It makes several good points about vile incidents such as this serving as “teachable moments” for our youth.

We heartily concur.

That being said, this situation also presents an important “teachable moment” for Chief K and his department – who still seem determined to stonewall the disclosure of information about the events leading up to that incident that our citizens deserve to have. While we can’t say that better policing earlier that evening might have prevented the incident and its aftermath, it’s not much of a stretch to entertain that possibility.

Chief K’s message applies to himself and his department no less than to the average citizen: “[T]here are consequences for your decisions and…they can be rather significant.”

So if the department didn’t botch those first two calls to Hinkley, Chief, why not release the reports that will answer the questions we asked and prove your assertions?

To read or post comments, click on title.