Chicago DUI lawyer comments on police officers, professional courtesies, and DUI arrests

This Chicago DUI lawyer has posted here, here, and here about police being charged with DUI's. Now comes news of a police officer's guilty plea for a DUI.

November 12, Eureka, IL

Calling him a poster child for people whose lives have been turned upside down by addictions, Woodford County Circuit Court Judge John Huschen sentenced Peoria police Officer Joseph Gray to 36 months of alternative probation.

It's a shame you got yourself into this predicament," Huschen told the Peoria police officer at a sentencing hearing Thursday. "It never ceases to amaze me the amount of havoc addictions can cause in people's lives, and you can be a poster child for that."

Gray, 33, of Metamora, who has been with the Peoria Police Department since September 1999, has been on unpaid leave since March, after charges of driving under the influence of alcohol and criminal damage to government property were filed. On Thursday, Doug Burgess, the spokesman for Peoria police, said Gray's status will be determined after the court documents have been handed over to the department. A convicted felon cannot legally carry a firearm.

Gray, who admitted being an alcoholic, also has to pay fines, court costs and $1,385 for damage to a Metamora Police Department squad car.

On the day of the DUI accident, Gray and his family attended an event in Champaign, and he went out afterward.

"I got a call to get together with some friends whom I hadn't seen in a while," he said.

So he bought some alcohol and headed to the party, which was to take place about 12:30 p.m. It also was about that time that he took the Lyrica.

He had "four to five drinks" at the party but felt fine when he left about 4:30 a.m. But about a mile from his home, where the road started winding on that rainy morning, everything fell apart.

"And I don't remember anything after that," he said, until he woke up on a "damp jail cell floor."

I still know that professional courtesies exist even if this officer didn't get one. Heck I was just discussing it today with a Chicago DUI cop. It is alive and well, although even the officer admits that a cop today with a probable DUI charge has a significantly decreased chance of being provided with such a courtesy.