Bad boys, bad boys....

Case in point: Moline officer Stephen Kautz was arrested for drunken driving in the early morning hours of June 1, 2004, after a single-vehicle accident. A fellow cop found him hanging upside-down from his seatbelt, asking where he was and what he had hit.

The chief at the time, Steve Etheridge, said, “He was intoxicated, recognized for being intoxicated and was arrested for being intoxicated.”

But Kautz got off. His fellow officer took the stand in court and said he smelled alcohol coming from the SUV, but not from Kautz himself. A judge ruled there was insufficient evidence to make the DUI arrest. Never mind that a hospital blood test showed his blood-alcohol level was more than twice the legal limit for driving.

Read Barb Ickes piece here and find out more about the party boys of the MPD.

Good lord, I wish Ickes had published the name of this cop's lawyer. Sounds like a good guy to have in your corner. What is it with Moline cops and discipline or the lack thereof for their misdeeds?

They've already got a cop for about every 10 residents, shouldn't it be expected that they'd be dealt with like you or I would be in similar circumstances? I only hope that a regular citizen arrested in similar circumstances would get the same sentence and treatment from their employers, but somehow I doubt it.