I was talking to my cousin over the holiday weekend. He’s a prosecutor in Indiana. I told him about the case involving Tyler McCoy and found his reaction interesting and unexpected. He asked me why the Peoria County State’s Attorney is handling this case. Normally, he said, a special prosecutor is requested to try these kinds of cases due to inherent conflicts of interest.
And in fact, that’s what other prosecutors have done in Illinois. For example, a police officer in Elgin was accused of misconduct at the beginning of this year, and the newspaper there reported:
[T]he Illinois appellate prosecutor’s office will investigate the incident to avoid a potential conflict with Kane County prosecutors, State’s Attorney John Barsanti said.
Because Kane County prosecutors work with Elgin police on a daily basis, Barsanti said he asked the department to seek another agency to investigate Chris Darr’s actions.
“Some of the witnesses are officers, and we have relationships with some of these guys,” Barsanti said. “And you don’t want to taint the way this is dealt with.”
I believe the same conditions exist here in Peoria, where the county prosecutors work with officers from the Sheriff’s department on a daily basis. Furthermore, the key witness is a fellow officer that the State’s Attorney threatened with felony charges if he didn’t testify against Tyler McCoy. Then there’s the fact that Tyler is the son of Sheriff Mike McCoy, a Republican running for reelection. State’s Attorney Kevin Lyons is a Democrat.
There appear to be more than enough potential conflicts to convince other state’s attorneys to request a special prosecutor. Why hasn’t one been requested here?
Because when you are soft on crime and get a chance to flex your muscle you need to take the opportunity. I mean if you can’t convince the citizens of Peoria County that you are serious about crime by not prosecuting serious criminals, you need to go after those who did no real harm to anyone but themselves and their career.
I do not think what happended with Tyler McCoy was correct and that he should have been treated like any other citizen or in his case a State Trooper should have been called to handle the accident scene and make the choices on what tests to administer and what tickets to issue.
An officer is not required by law or by department policy to write everyone he stops who has been drinking alcoholic beverages a DUI. Its called discretion. Officers have been given breaks before. Yes. But not nearly as often as private citizens. Simply because private citizens are stopped more often than cops. If every officer wrote a DUI to everyone they stopped who had been drinking, there would be several dozen arrests for DUI every night. A DUI takes 45min-2hrs to complete depending on the cooperation of the suspect. With only 16 officers to patrol the city, its not feasible to arrest everyone who has been drinking and charge them with a DUI. There is usually 1 officer in traffic division who does DUIs every night. He may do 1 or 2. (That position will be eliminated if the layoffs occur) On a busy night, officers may stop 30 or 40 motorists. Most would have been drinking alcoholic beverages. Only 1 or 2 will be wrote a DUI. Most released on a warning and told to get a cab, have a friend pick them up, or the officer tranports them home depending on distance and backlog of calls. Anyone who says officers don’t give breaks to citizens and only themselves for professional courtesy has lived a very sheltered life.
An interesting scenario though is if State Police investigated McCoys accident, and they decided to do the report, write a ticket, but not do a DUI, would that Trooper then be guilty of hiding a crime? According to Lyons, cutting a break to another police officer or an ordinary citizen would constitute Obstructing Justice. Lyons is forcing all officers to cut no breaks and enforce the law to its fullest…and ironically for him to pick and choose which cases he will dismiss and prosecute.
Your attorney friend is right that an independant prosecutor should have taken the case. It should have been the same for the first jailor that had been arrested and the same with the 3 Peoria Officers still awaiting their trial. But a special prosecutor would have looked at the cases and dismissed all for lack of evidence. So Lyons did not seek one because it takes it out of his control.
Anyone who has seen the McCoy-gate video would have to agree McCoy is wasted. He just does not have a little alcohol in him but is definately intoxicated. I have a hard time beliving that any police officer would give a break to an ordinary citizen. If McCoys situation would have been a common citizen are you saying that we would have caught the same break?
If Peoria county would have avoided the same conflict of interest we would not have the conflict of interest with Lyons. It does look like the county learned with the arrest of the corrections officer on DUI charges. At least the lesson is learned.
Depends on the circumstances of the incident and whats going on at the time. Was McCoy intoxicated? Probably. But I have also seen people who have staggered and swayed after hitting their heads in accidents. So there is the possibility that he had been drinking, wasn’t drunk, but hit his head. We just don’t know and its not for us to pass judgement. Yes I have personally not arrested people who have been intoxicated and staggered as he did in the video. On numorous occassions. On a night where the intoxicated driver is in a single car, non injury accident and there are several priority calls pending, I do not have time to sit on a DUI for 2 hours while there are domestics, burglaries and heathens out terrorizing the neighborhood. 15-20 min on the accident, write a ticket, tow the car and send the driver on his way. Or I could sit there and do that DUI while you call in because you heard glass break in the downstairs of your house. I may be just down the street, but I can’t leave since hes in custody and the nearest car may be 15-20 min away. When he is taken into custody, a second officer responds per department policy and he is not allowed to leave either. So we choose the lesser of 2 evils since we’re so low in manpower. Calling another agency isn’t always an option either. City PD runs 14-16 officers per night. County runs 5-8, and State PD tries to run 5 Troopers for district 8 which constitutes 5 counties. If you don’t believe me, Peoria Police does offer a ride along program. I would suggest you try it on a Friday or Saturday night and it may be an eye opener for you.
I know its hard for some to fathom with all the anti drinking and driving public service annoncments, but more often than not (at least in peoria), a person who has been stopped and is found to have had a couple of drinks will probably be given an opportunity to get another way home, and not arrested for dui. The officers at the ppd are way to busy to get bogged down for 1 to 2 hours to process a drunk. However, if that person has done something incredibly stupid or is acting like an ass, than yeah, they get the dui. By the way, smoking weed and driving is the same deal, just ask any peoria area cop how many people they stop a day that could be arrested for dui-drugs. Its scary. The admin and city dont want street cops wasting (relative term, i know) there time with dui suspects, when there are other more serious crimes to worry about, oh and dont forget the performance standards that officers are required to achieve (ie ticket quota). And if a district officer stops a guy for dui and is out of service for an hour or two, dont think they arent going to hear about how there district is falling apart from the sgt and above. Its a no win for the officer and its sad.
Was Mccoy drunk? Probably. Did he get special treatment? Maybe. Did Griggs commit felony official misconduct and obstruction of justice? NO! Its a sad day when the sao is prosecuting cops for using discretion (even if it was questionable). Lyons certainly has a case for getting in the Sherriffs A** about Griggs’s decision, but he has no business committing extortion to make a political point. Griggs should have been dealt with through discipline from the department, not made out to be a criminal.
Which is another problem for Griggs. Tyler is the sherriffs son, so if he didnt try to help him out he would have been black balled at the PCSD. Talk about damned if you do, damned if you dont. He was screwed as soon as he got the call and didnt even know it.
jd: Very nice summation.
Hit the nail on the head there JD.
I belive both JD and AC. I wouldn’t mind going along with a police officer for a shift. It probably be a real eye opener.
This is certainly a case of double standard.How can Tyler McCoy put on a sheriff uniform and arrest other citizens for the same crime he didn’t get arrested for. This shows that police are just as crooked as other criminals. They are allowed to cover up for one another just as hoodlums do.Yes this whole situation is bogus and down right wrong. What if this was a Black man driving,after drinking, licenses suspended and fined, lost job and maybe jail time. This is certainly hypocrisy.If I where the states attorney I would prosecute him to the fullest of the law. The reason being he was sworn to up hold the law not get away with breaking the law. He is not special even if he is Michael McCoy the sheriff’s son.