Quentin E. Arnold, 36, has been charged in the incident that left McLeansboro resident Scott Etienne, 40, dead at the side of Highway 37 at Crites Road outside of Marion on May 15 at about 9:30 p.m.

Authorities say Arnold was behind the wheel, and Etienne walking on the roadside, when Etienne was struck. Arnold was charged with Aggravated DUI leading to Death (a Class 2 felony), Accidental Injury leading to death (a Class 4 felony) and Failure to Report an Accident (a Class 1 felony). A separate misdemeanor count of DUI was also filed, as well as a misdemeanor-level traffic ticket of Leaving the Scene of an Accident.

Authorities at first didn’t release Arnold’s name following the incident. However, he was taken to the Williamson County jail where he was booked in the early morning hours of yesterday, May 16, and was released after posting $5,000 bond. He’s scheduled for a preliminary hearing on June 10.

Authorities have advised that Scott Allen Etienne was struck by a vehicle last night as he was walking north on Route 37 just north of Crites Road in Marion, but exactly what time is unknown. He was, however, pronounced dead at the scene by the county coroner, Mike “Junior” Burke, at about 9:30 p.m.

We have no information on who was driving the car.

Etienne is reported to have been from McLeansboro.

The death is being investigated; more as we get it, be sure to check back.

JOHNSTON CITY —Now here’s something you don’t see every day.

You’re all probably aware of the water department debacles that have hit towns in southern Illinois…such as Linda Heyde in Marion, or what’s going on with Harrisburg’s audit, or even the gal in Carrier Mills that took up with a Juggalo…she was employed by the city’s water department.

Well apparently they had one in Johnston City (in Williamson County) in late 2012, wherein a long-time (March of 2000 to last December) water department office supervisor, Jayne Stallings, was suspended without pay in October on a “suspicion and possible evidence of money missing from the water/sewer department.” Then on December 18, she was terminated.

However, no charges were ever filed.

So, Stallings herself filed suit on May 1 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois in Benton.

In the suit, she’s claiming wrongful termination, malicious conduct on the part of JC mayor Jim Mitchell and former city water alderman Greg Yelencich, and denial of due process during the final months of her employment (when she was on leave) before her termination. On the latter point, she claimed that she wasn’t allowed a hearing in order to defend herself against the allegations, and that Mitchell and Yelencich “made public statements that she had committed criminal acts in her job that were false and also defamatory.”

Interesting turn of events, considering everyone who is either charged or comes under scrutiny; who knows, maybe this will set a precedent regarding those who “find money missing” from a department or account, but no charges are ever filed; instead, someone is just ‘let go’ and everybody believes the problem is solved. Will it lead to more such federal suits?

Our sources listening on the scanner are advising that it’s been reported authorities pursued 3 men out of Harrisburg just after 3:30. Reports are sketchy, but it appears the robbery may have occurred at EITHER the SIC Foundation Building or the dorms out at Southeastern Illinois College (this latter appears to be the case)

The chase took police west of town out on Route 13 toward Marion. The vehicle was reportedly stopped and the three apprehended.  Our source advised that there were ten squad cars surrounding a black Pontiac Grand Prix at the east side of Marion, and included Marion police, Illinois State Police, Williamson County deputies and a Carrier Mills squad.

We have no clue yet as to the identities of the suspects or what authorities actually found, but we do have this photo:

Taken by a Disclosure source, outside of Harrisburg. Click on photo to enlarge.

When we get more, we’ll bring it.

Disclosure has confirmed with officials that a warrant for Nick Rider, Creal Springs police chief, was issued out of Gallatin County where Rider was wanted on charges of Domestic Battery and Unlawful Restraint.

While we don’t yet know the circumstances surrounding the Gallatin County charges, we do know that Rider has already been booked and posted bond.

His status as Creal Springs chief is apparently still intact; if we learn any further developments, we’ll bring them to you.

Rider, Nick. Chief of police, Creal Springs….& charged in Gallatin.

From Shaunn Curry’s Facebook page.

WILLIAMSON CO.—Once again, Williamson County is in the news, and once again, it’s because of a cop.

But this time, it’s not fisticuffs, beating a restrained suspect or other such impropriety. This time, it’s a repeat offender, and the offense is just one of those things no one tolerates: drunk driving.

Shaunn Curry, 48, a deputy with the Williamson County sheriff’s department, was the subject of a press release from sheriff Bennie Vick yesterday (03.03.13):

PRESS RELEASE FROM WILLIAMSON COUNTY SHERIFF BENNIE VICK

On Friday evening, March 1, 2013, at approximately 6:40 p.m., Williamson County Deputy Shaunn Curry was arrested for driving while under the influence of alcohol. Officer Currey was off duty at the time of the incident and driving his personal vehicle when he was stopped for erratic driving and suspicion of driving under the influence.

Officer Curry was initially stopped by the Williamson County Sheriff’s Department following multiple 911 calls being received reporting a possible intoxicated drive on Route 13, East of Marion. Upon learning the driver of the vehicle was a Williamson County Deputy, officers notified the Illinois State Police at which time they responded and investigated the incident. Officer Curry was arrested and processed by the Illinois State Police and processed at the Herrin, Illinois Police Department and released after posting the required bond.

The employment status of Officer Curry is currently unknown due to the pending investigation and Sheriff Bennie Vick has indicated he cannot comment at this time as a pending investigation into the matter is ongoing, but will update the status of this matter when allowed.

In the meantime, Sheriff Vick wants the public to know that he does not condone drinking and driving and vows to investigate this matter in its entirety.

Good for Sheriff Vick, and good for Chuck Garnati (prosecutor) if he follows through. Likely he will, as Curry had an identical incident in 2008, which we covered in the pages of our print version in full, back in the days before we were online. So what we’re going to do is bring in that material, and cover this in full in the next print version, on stands next week…get the print version right here on you computer by enrolling in an online membership, where you can get the e-Edition delivered digitally. And keep with us on this stuff…the incidence of cops getting in trouble in southern Illinois is becoming more and more frequent, and we’re interested in how this situation, and others, will be handled for people who should be held to a higher standard than the rest of us.

Chuck Garnati

WILLIAMSON CO.—Say what you will about Chuck Garnati, the man knows how to handle cases when they involve cops. And that includes when to pursue them as well as when to back out.

In the case of a Johnston City cop conflict, he’s bowing out.

Garnati has asked that a special prosecutor be appointed in the case of Vernon Campbell, police chief of Johnston City (a little burg just off the interstate in Williamson), who is alleged to have struck in some way (punched, hit, slapped) another officer, Tim Patrick, on February 9, 2013.

Patrick filed a battery complaint which indicated that what lead up to the physical aspect of it was a verbal altercation, this occurring at the police station, where Patrick had been reviewing a video of a stabbing incident that had happened the night before.

Reports indicate that Patrick said “friction arose between (him) and Campbell’s son Thomas,” who is an auxiliary police officer, as Patrick was reviewing the tape.

We can’t figure that one out; unless something else was going on besides just “reviewing” the tape….like maybe Patrick making some comments about his boss, Campbell, while doing so, or some such thing.

In any event, Patrick made a report to Illinois State Police about the matter….along with “another case in which he considered Campbell suspect.”

We don’t know “suspect” of what. But this is beginning to sound like the brouhaha that went down in Royalton a few years back, wherein their police chief was reported to ISP for potentially taking things out of the evidence locker a la Raymond Martin. The officer who reported the chief to ISP, Shawn Turner, was subsequently fired. Then, here a while back (just a few months ago), this same police chief was actually discovered to have been stealing and was terminated. Who was covering for him? Probably everybody, so everyone’s complicit. What a sad, sad state our cops are in right now.

Anyway, Garnati, after not bowing out of so many other cop cases in Williamson (the cops who beat up that Marine in 2007 come immediately to mind, but those aren’t the only ones), is bowing out of this one because his working relationship with Vern Campbell goes bad “25 years” and he believes there’s be a perceived conflict. Good for Chuck. He’s one of the few prosecutors in downstate that we have any respect for, because he’s been doing his job. We hope he keeps doing it. We also hope we can get the backstory about how this whole altercation in Johnston City burst forth. Keep checking back, because we’re sure going to try.

From USGS

This one was a little closer to what’s considered the New Madrid Seismic Zone, not the one over toward the eastern side of the state, the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone (where we sit.) If you felt it, please fill out a felt report, to help USGS. And let us know, too. There have been some weird occurrences over in the New Madrid area, including sinkholes lately. We’d like to know if things are gearing up.

This one. It ran last week.

Apparently that wasn’t right.

This is a photo of a test that ostensibly was run on a “powdery substance” being found in former Gallatin County sheriff Raymond Martin’s cell in Williamson County after he landed there in late October, pending a hearing in U.S. District Court originally set for November 29. That hearing didn’t go because of the multiple pills and powdery substance. This “powdery substance” field-tested positive for cocaine. That’s the photo above: the field test. Administered by the people in the federal holding section of the Williamson County Courthouse.

Yeah. That’s what we said.

As it turned out, this powdery substance is now being reported as being the insides of an anti-depressant pill that busted and was among the other pills Martin allegedly had (allegedly because really, this is a tough one; jail officials “shook down” his cell on Oct. 30 about 10 minutes after he arrived and magically “found” this stash of contraband)—NOT cocaine. The feds have advised that the field test read a false positive. Oops. Sorry Raymondo.

This is just the latest troublesome development in a series of troublesome developments that began when Martin’s appeal was approved by an appeals court in Chicago. The higher court ruled that his sentence was a little excessive (two life sentences for a “weapons in commission of a drug crime” conviction) and that he should be resentenced according to guidelines. According to what we’re learning, however, a different set of “guidelines” are going to be applied that are going to result in roughly the same sentence (maybe a couple of years shorter, but hey, life is life). This is set to go down on Friday of this week. And the feds are wanting to use this big drug stash found in Raymondo’s cell as reason to impose and even stiffer sentence…if one can be had. Maybe those two extra years or so. We probably won’t know until we get there.

But the drug find was indeed strange. Martin claims that the antidepressants came from other federal inmates that he “borrowed”  prior to making his trip back to Illinois. At least he admitted to them. He probably should have kept them in whatever dank place he had them just a little longer than he did so the shakedown wouldn’t have revealed them…but hey, if the man’s on antidepressants, it would seem he had other concerns to deal with besides crevasse concealment.

So we don’t know what we’re going to hear Friday. It definitely should be interesting. And maybe we’ll hear an explanation of how that field test could have given an erroneous result…and how often such a thing has happened in OTHER cases across the country.