I happen to live a couple of towns over from Fox Lake, IL. Lake County, IL has done a fairly respectable job of protecting open spaces, forested land, etc… - so these very northern suburbs of Chicago can simultaneously feel very rural and condensed with McMansions and big box stores. Add in all of the lakes to this picture and it seems very spread out and open (to me).
As for the question of there being any big unsolved crimes in the area - none that I’m aware of. Yet, I would not go so far as to agree that the police forces in these areas have much opportunity to be bored. Generally, many “wealthy” towns here are bordered by a “poverty” town - a true modern day representation of Americana landscape. Anyhow, cops seem to stay busy.
Fox Lake is working class (with maybe some old money still hanging around) - and where the boating class put their boats in the water when they aren’t in the mood for Lake Michigan or the drive up to Lake Geneva.
Hope that helps shed some light on the area being discussed.
OP, I think you have a TV/movie conception of police activity. Cops see millions of situations every year which are suspicious. The substantial majority of the time there is a reasonable explanation. For example a cop sees someone trying to get into your garage, OP. It looks suspicious so the cop checks–and it turns out to be you. For the substantial majority of the rest of the time it’s going to turn out to be a minor crime for which the cop will most often just give a warning, but sometime a ticket (the suspicious activity turns out to be a homeless guy or a teenage couple engaging in hanky panky). It’s only going to be a very, very small percentage of these suspicious activities which are serious crimes–and thus justify backup.
As to why the 400 cops didn’t find anyone it was probably because it took a significant amount of time for them to show up.
As to why the murderer killed the cop it was a spur of the moment decision like most murders. He didn’t want to go to jail say for drug dealing, so just shot the cop without thinking.
Except it was three guys actively running away into an, albeit small, wooded area. Plus, according to the dispatch tapes, he turned down backup.
They called in every available officer from the entire county as soon as they found the shot policeman.
That’s a big assumption plus it leaves two guys who didn’t shoot anyone free to peel off and turn themselves in, as analysts on TV are urging them to do.
Lamar, please get your damn facts straight. Or at least post the ENTIRE truth about the dispatch tapes, what was said, and quit picking and choosing sound bites to make some obscure point - the officer DID ask for back up. It’s on the tapes.
I don’t know what point you’re trying to prove with this nonsense - but it would be nice if you at least reported facts and not your personal spin.
Disclaimer: those living in the area are probably getting more (more but maybe not accurate) reports than I am. I am answering in generalities from my own personal experience.
How far was he from the suspects when he saw them? What did he get a chance to say? More often than not when a foot pursuit begins you get out a quick transmission like “Foot pursuit 2 white males one black male heading north.” That gets people moving to your location. When you get a minute to spare you stop and give out a more detailed description to include ages, clothing, hair type etc. The officer may not have gotten a chance to give out a better description or maybe there is information they are not yet releasing to the public.
What would you have him do? In my experience once you lose sight of the suspects it is nearly impossible to catch anyone. It’s not like TV where they always seem to figure out where someone ran off to. I have lost people after literally losing sight of them for 15 seconds or less. If he let them go until someone else arrived he might as well have just kept driving and not call it out. He may not have been able to apprehend three people by himself but getting one is better than none. Or at least he could keep them in sight until others arrived.
They set up a perimeter and had to meticulously search the entire area. I have almost missed someone hiding in brush after I almost stepped on him. It is not as easy as it looks on TV. It takes a lot of manpower and time. And there is never any guarantee that they didn’t get out of the area a minute before the cordon closed. But you still have to look and make sure they aren’t hiding under a kiddy pool.
6 minutes is a long time. I was pursuing a guy on foot and he turned the corner around a fence and when I caught up it was like a magic trick. Poof gone. We never found him. I was less than 10 seconds behind him.
This is a pet peeve of mine. “My house got robbed” is not an emergency*. In a large town/city/county, they’ll get there when they get there. In Milwaukee, as well, I’ve heard many people say it can take hours before they’ll show up to take the report. Though I highly doubt the dispatcher said ‘FU’.
However, tell them your house is actively being burglarized, that you just got home and see a window smashed in, you can hear at least two people inside and there’s a car backed up to the front door and you’re likely to have cops there in considerably less than 2 hours. (FTR, I’m not saying you should do that, I’m saying that if your house was being robbed, that would be an emergency and they’d respond in kind).
I know it sucks to have to wait a few hours for the cops to show up after a traumatic experience, but ‘something happened while I was at work for 8 hours and I just found out about it’ isn’t an emergency’.
But if you don’t like it, move to a smaller town. In my city, I can call in a ‘non-emergency’ that requires the police and I’ll have them here in minutes, often times multiple cars.
*Though, to be safe, I personally probably wouldn’t go inside until the police arrived just in case someone was still in there.
Anyone else getting a weird vibe from this OP? It started with a veteran police officer being killed while supposedly investigating three suspicious men. Then right away, some anonymous guy shows up on a message board and starts talking about the “weird vibe” he gets from the reporting on the incident and asking a bunch of questions, saying he doesn’t have an alternate theory but clearly implying that he thinks the story is false. Why would someone do that?
Press: “Has the police officers death been ruled a homicide?” Police: “No comment.”
Press: Was he killed by his own weapon? The one that was taken by the killers but then found a few feet away from the body?" Police: “No comment.”
Press:“What’s this about a video of the suspects?” Police: “We have one from a security camera.” Press: “Can we see it? We can show it to potentially ten thousand helpful witnesses.” Po;ice: “No” Press: Why not?" Police: “No comment.”
