Riverside Police Chief Thomas Weitzel will take the lead role in a regional police chiefs organization next month when he is sworn in as president of the West Suburban Chiefs of Police Association.
The association includes the leaders of 35 municipalities as well as representatives from the Cook County Sheriff’s Police and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The group serves in part to lobby state legislators on issues important to law enforcement but also to collaborate on advancing other pro-law enforcement issues and training and identifying best practices.
Weitzel, who will remain chief of police in Riverside, will be sworn in as the association’s president by Riverside resident and Illinois Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka on Sept. 16 at an installation dinner in McCook.
In addition to Weitzel, the Landmark coverage area will also be represented by the installation of Brookfield Police Chief Steven Stelter as vice president and North Riverside Police Chief Anthony Garvey as secretary.
As vice president this year, Stelter will be named president of the group next year.
“It’s really going to make for a good working relationship for all of us,” said Weitzel of the association’s new officers, who will serve in those positions for one year.
“We already have a good working relationship. We don’t always agree, but we have easy access to one another. It’s not unusual to talk to Steve and Tony on the weekend by cellphone if something happens in our towns.”
As president of the association, Weitzel said he hopes to gain greater input from a law-enforcement perspective at the state level.
“We want to more aggressively support law enforcement legislation,” said Weitzel. “I don’t believe the legislature has the respect for the chiefs that they ought to have. I’m a member of the state chiefs association and we’ve been shut out. We want to take a greater role regionally.”
Garvey said Weitzel has been a leader within the association in pushing pro-law-enforcement legislation at the state level. Riverside took the lead on sponsoring the Michael Gordon law, which mandates felony charges for drunken drivers who have invalid licenses and no vehicle insurance.
He also was successful in 2010 in getting a laws passed that increased the administrative penalty in DUI cases and mandated judges to impose municipal fines when adjudicating traffic offenses.
“Tom’s been one of the main leaders on any legislative issues,” said Garvey. “He’s done a great job with it.”
Stelter agreed.
“Tom’s strongest suit is legislative issues,” Stelter said. “He has a real passion for that. I just want to grow the association in a positive way.”
While lobbying at the state level is one aspect of what the association does, Weitzel said another high priority on his list is getting the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office to revisit its mandate for approving most felony charges.
According to Weitzel, police departments in other counties don’t have restrictions on charging offenders with felonies, nor are there such restrictions in state statutes. It’s not even consistent within Cook County, Weitzel added. Police commanders in Chicago can approve felonies on their own, due to the volume of such offenses in the city.
But suburban departments must get felonies approved by the state’s attorney, which creates layers of paperwork and adds unnecessary costs for local departments, according to Weitzel.
“Our officers are just as efficient,” Weitzel said. “Just because we’re smaller doesn’t mean we’re not capable. Officers should be able to charge at the felony level per state statute. Then we can bring [prisoners] down to bond court with much less administrative paperwork and processing.”
Weitzel said he’s not advocating for suburban departments to process all felonies. He’d still like to see the state’s attorney be involved in serious cases such as murder, rape and robbery. But for weapons offenses, felony DUIs, etc., municipal police are more than capable of proffering the correct charges.
“For felony DUI and felony driving while revoked, you have to get approvals, and I disagree with that,” Weitzel said.
“Our officers are well-trained. If they make a mistake, we’ll handle that locally.”
Weitzel said the association can also look to ways departments can help each other – “sharing detectives, sharing training costs, that type of shared services” – by consolidating resources to save money and effort.