Police Psychology | Officer Involved Shootings – Collateral Damage

Chief George Filenko, Round Lake Park Police Department

It was early New Year’s morning 2006. The phone rang jolting me out of a sound sleep. The gruff voice on the other end of the phone was then Task Force Commander Bill Valko. Commander Valko was a veteran Waukegan cop who had seen just about everything bad you could see in police work. We held a common bond in that we were both from Chicago eventually relocating to the “burbs”. Bill would call me “Humboldt Park” referring to my old stomping grounds on Chicago’s west side. 

“We’ve got an OIS (Officer Involved Shooting) in Beach Park that’s a real cluster.” Beach Park is a suburb located in Northern Lake County that borders Waukegan on the south and Zion on the north in the Lake County Sheriffs jurisdiction. (more…)