Families packed into Rock Island City Hall Monday night to witness three aldermen and Mayor Mike Thoms take their oaths of office after winning their elections April 6.
Community members voiced opinions on the issue following a post on Facebook by Alderman Dylan Parker Author: Maggie Wedlake (WQAD) Updated: 10:36 PM CDT May 11, 2021
ROCK ISLAND, Ill. Rock Island Alderman Dylan Parker has come under fire after posting a statement regarding the decision by the Rock Island County States Attorney saying officers involved in the shooting of Deshawn Tatum were justified in their actions.
Parker called for a further examination of foot pursuit policies within the Rock Island Police Department. But part of his statement didn’t sit well with law enforcement. Parker saying, “The loss of even one life should prompt us to examine the circumstances that led to the tragedy. We, as policy makers, have a responsibility to ensure the agents of state violence under our authority have the appropriate policies to check that danger.
Posted5/7/2021 5:20 AM
The deadliest threat facing law enforcement officers across the country over the past year hasn t been armed criminals, high-speed pursuits or reckless drivers crashing into patrol vehicles.
It s been COVID-19.
According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, 297 officers including nine in Illinois have died after contracting the virus as a result of their duties. That s nearly 200 more than all other causes combined over the same time frame.
But despite those sobering statistics, police officers nationwide have been slow to get the COVID-19 vaccine, according to a report this week in The Washington Post. Although police were among the first with access, less than 40% of officers in several major-city departments New York, Atlanta and Phoenix among them have received even one dose, the Post reported. That compares to nearly 57% of adults nationwide, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Thomas Lair said he had a lot of angels around him on March 26. It s a miracle I m alive, admitted Lair, who lives in Murrayville, a village in Morgan County, about 12 miles southeast of Jacksonville.
That afternoon, Lair was coming home from his job at Walmart when he failed to negotiate a turn onto Murrayville Road from U.S. 267.
Lair s 2002 Ford Ranger flipped â the dashcam from Murrayville-Woodson police officer Patrick McKinnon s patrol vehicle captured it â and the truck and Lair came to rest upside down in a ditch in a pool of water.
McKinnon, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who is still in training as a police officer at the academy in Springfield, sprang into action and was eventually able to break the driver s side window to extricate Lair, who had lost consciousness and had no pulse for between four to six minutes.