More than a month ago, on June 3 to be exact, a high-speed collision of two automobiles occurred at the intersection of Devon and Cumberland, resulting in four people being injured.

Yesterday it was announced that the criminal investigation into the accident resulted in charges against Park Ridge resident William J. Kivit, 20, for three counts of felony aggravated reckless driving and one count of felony aggravated fleeing and eluding in connection with that accident. That announcement was made via a Park Ridge Police Department press release.

With that investigation now out of the way, we can only hope that the Police Department will finally stop stonewalling the Park Ridge City Council and City taxpayers, and provide an explanation of why it took almost four days, and an ABC7 I-Team investigative report based on a tip from a PRPD insider, to finally admit that a Park Ridge police officer was involved in that crash – after the department had issued several (we hear it was three) press releases about the incident that made no mention that it occurred in connection with a police chase.

You can get the background on that from our 06.10.15 post, “‘Whole Truth Goes Missing In Police Dept. Account Of Crash.”

The PRPD’s radio silence about those false press releases is a troubling sign for a department that already has shown itself to be at least a quart or two low on transparency, yet high on self-promotion and congratulation – as evidenced by all those fluff-and-stroke “Complimentary Letters” Police Chief Frank Kaminski keeps on sticking in the record at every Public Safety COW meeting.

Despite Chief K’s assurance to the I-Team investigators that those press releases were not intended to cover up the involvement of the officer, more than a month later he has said and done nothing to dispel the impression that he and his department are stonewalling all inquiries about how and why they repeatedly handed out misleading information until they were caught by a t.v. news team, based on an insider’s tip.

To the contrary, at every turn Chief K seems to conflates the “internal investigation” of the accident itself (i.e., did the officer act properly in participating in the police chase) with whatever “internal investigation,” if any, is being done of who lied about the incident, albeit by omission, in those press releases.

That’s simply not right, and it’s not even close to transparent.

Worse yet, the City Council is letting him get away with it, if the Public Safety segments of the last two Committee Of the Whole (“COW”) meetings are any indication.

Chief K’s first report to the Council about the accident starts at the 3:50 mark of the June 8 COW meeting video. Although it kind of sounds (from the 6:05 mark to the 7:05 mark) like maybe he’s alluding to the press releases when using words like “gap” and “inconsistencies,” one cannot tell for sure. Unfortunately, neither Committee Chairman Ald. Nick Milissis, an attorney, nor any other alderman asked for a more substantial explanation.

And this past Monday’s COW meeting was just the same old same old, with Chief K offering (beginning at the 7:10 mark of the July 13 meeting video) more palaver about an “internal investigation” involving “interviews and interrogations,” without even mentioning the press releases or answering the two basic questions that could have, and should have, been answered a month ago:

• Who issued the erroneous press releases?
• Why wasn’t the police officer’s involvement mentioned?

Ald. Milissis has repeatedly shown himself to be a vigorous and relentless advocate for his constituents when it comes to issues like flooding, so we were both puzzled and disappointed with his meek, almost apologetic, tone in posing a few lightweight questions to Chief K as the rest of the Council sat silently.

On this issue, not unlike others that touch on policing and public safety, Chief K seems to exert a Svengali-like influence over a Council that responds like a gaggle of Trilbys.

In his six-year tenure here (after 32 years with the Evanston Police Department) Chief K has shown himself to be, perhaps, the most masterful politician in City government. He holds an MBA from Northwestern’s Kellog School of Management and he clearly knows how to “manage” – or, in this case, withhold – information. He’s like a combination of Teflon and Kevlar, deflecting or harmlessly absorbing whatever comes his way.

At this point we will repeat again, for the record, that we are supporters of Chief K and the Police Dept. We believe they generally do a fine job of policing our community, and they deserve our respect and gratitude.

But that doesn’t mean we should turn a blind eye toward things like the PRPD’s sending out erroneous/false press releases that appear designed to conceal what might be seen as an embarrassing fact, or of stonewalling once the error/fraud is discovered –including by rejecting (so far, as we understand it) a FOIA request by the Channel 7 I-Team.

Just like we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to the way the PRPD handled/mis-handled last summer’s Hinkley Park incident where a middle-aged Park Ridge man was beaten by several young thugs egged on by a large crowd of teens – including the PRPD’s rejection (so far, as we understand it) of a FOIA request by the Park Ridge Herald-Advocate.

And just like we shouldn’t turn a blind eye to the curious way in which a PRPD officer was found not guilty of DUI when the PRPD arrest report mysteriously failed to include the results of a blood-alcohol test reportedly taken at Lutheran General Hospital following the arrest last October, as reported in a February 10, 2015 H-A article.

John Adams, the 2nd president of the United States, wrote that “Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right and a desire to know.”

So far, Chief K doesn’t seem to understand or feel bound by that right.

And, so far, our elected representatives on the Council don’t seem inclined to hold him accountable for it.

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