IL State Police Keep Seized Hot Cars for Personal Use

by The Newspaper

Published: May 7th, 2009

il state police keep seized hot cars for personal use

Illinois State Police troopers seized a high-performance muscle car and set it aside for the personal use of an influential police official. The Associated Press reported that a suspected drunk driver in a 2006 Dodge Charger SRT-8 was pulled over in January 2007. The troopers used a state seizure law to confiscate the vehicle. Once the paperwork was complete, the 425-horsepower vehicle—as-new base price of $38K—was handed over for the personal use of Ron Cooley, 56, the Executive Director of the Illinois State Police Merit Board. Taxpayers also pick up the fuel tab for gas-guzzling 6.1-liter V-8 as he drives to and from work each day and on various business trips.

A good relationship with the merit board is essential for any state trooper looking to move up into a position of responsibility.

“The mission of the Illinois State Police Merit Board is to remove political influence and provide a fair and equitable merit process for the selection of Illinois State trooper candidates and the promotion and discipline of Illinois State Police officers,” the board website explains.

According to the AP, the Charger is just one of two dozen desirable cars—including an Audi and a Cadillac Escalade—grabbed and kept by state troopers. State police officials decline to identify the beneficiaries of the confiscated car policy claiming it could endanger officers if they made public the type of car they drove at taxpayer expense.

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4 of 57 comments

Obbop on May 07, 2009

Bureaucrats and bureaucracies are a far greater threat to your freedoms than ALL foreign threats combined. Of this I am convinced. And voting at any level will not alter what has happened, is occurring now and what will be altered in the future... all to the detriment of the average American of the immensely large commoner class.

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Ronnie Schreiber on May 07, 2009
Reagan started the “War on Drugs,” In general drug hysteria has been about the same on both sides of the aisle. Still, ideologically most libertarians don't like drug laws and plenty of conservatives also have a laissez faire attitude about pot. The old saying is that a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged and a libertarian is a conservative who's been arrested. If you polled the writers at the National Review, you'd find some voices for decriminilization. I'm old enough to remember when LSD was made illegal by Pat Brown, the Democrat who was Calif governor before Reagan. Marijuana became illegal in the 1930s, when FDR was in the White House. In any case, the property seizure laws regarding drugs, DUI and alleged criminal behavior are at least problematic and almost certainly abused by every government agency with that power. Usually it's your local police department or state police that's depriving you of your property and liberty and not the federal government, but with the increase in the size of the federal gov't with the "stimulus" package and huge budget increases, I don't expect to have less intrusion in our lives.

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Anonymous on May 08, 2009

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Anonymous on May 09, 2009

[...] But, if there’s one thing this goes to show you it’s that Illinois is readying itself to replace Florida as the state in the Union you’re able to have the most fun in on your way to a corruption and abuse of power indictment. [The Newspaper via TTAC] [...]

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