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Johnsburg’s Collin Ridout named Northwest Herald Baseball Player of the Year /C4
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84 66 Complete forecast on page A12
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Baby home after heart transplant Algonquin family celebrates daughter’s recovery By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com ALGONQUIN – Susan and Dave Bockman didn’t know if they would ever get this moment. Their 1-year-old daughter, Danielle, was home, smiling and laughing, being passed around from relative to relative, and except for the feeding tube, looking like a normal, perfectly healthy baby. Danielle Bockman spent about three months at Ann and Robert Lurie’s Children
Hospital in Chicago, after a parvovirus settled in her heart, causing a low-grade fever, faster breathing and her heart to pump at only 15 percent of its capacity. She would need a new heart. “We thought we were going to lose her,” said her mother, Susan Bockman. “There were a few times that she really declined. I just kept hoping there would be a donor.” The heart came on May 13, shortly before her first birthday.
Susan Bockman – who had been living full-time at the Ronald McDonald House while her husband, Dave, stayed at home with their 3-year-old son, Jack – woke up to the phone call. She didn’t want to pick up the phone. She knew it could be something going wrong – the last months had been filled with ups and downs – or it could be good news. It was good news, and since then, there’s been more good news. Danielle spent the next
month recovering, eventually moving into the Ronald McDonald House with her mother, out of the hospital but close enough for observation and regular blood tests. And then Saturday afternoon, she came home. The house and front yard were decked out with balloons. A large sign welcoming Danielle home and wishing her a belated birthday hung on the garage door. Pink ribbons tied to trees lined the block of their
See TRANSPLANT, page A4
Sarah Nader – snader@shawmedia.com
Susan Bockman (left) holds her daughter, Danielle, 1, while her husband, Dave, releases balloons during a welcome home celebration Saturday for Danielle at their Algonquin home.
Police snatch up military gear
Storms down trees, wires By EMILY K. COLEMAN ecoleman@shawmedia.com
Kyle Grillot – kgrillot@shawmedia.com
McHenry County Sheriff’s Sgt. Alex Emby enters the recently acquired military Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicle Wednesday. The vehicle is to be converted into a rescue vehicle for the sheriff’s department. Future modifications include: new lights, paint, radio and utility updates. The MRAP will replace the 1986 Mobile Armored Rescue Vehicle (MARV).
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Sparks debate over ‘police militarization’ WOODSTOCK – The armored behemoth in front of the McHenry County Sheriff’s garage in Hartland Township dwarfs the deputies standing watch over it. If the vehicle’s imposing 9-foot height and armor-plated 40-ton weight doesn’t reveal its original intent, its desert khaki paint job does. The MRAP, or Mine-Resis-
tant Ambush Protected vehicle, was designed to protect troops on the battlefield from land mines and improvised explosive devices. It will become part of the arsenal of the sheriff’s office SWAT team, once the garage staff is through modifying it for its new role. The sheriff’s office is one of the latest law enforcement agencies nationwide to acquire such a vehicle through an obscure government sur-
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plus program that has put military vehicles, weapons and other surplus into the hands of law enforcement agencies large and small, at little to no cost. It’s a program that law enforcement officials laud and civil liberties activists are growing to loathe. To Undersheriff Andrew Zinke, having a vehicle that can protect officers and rescue civilians just makes sense for the sheriff’s office,
which is the only McHenry County agency that maintains a SWAT team. “I think we need to have one because we’re the [SWAT] rescue department for the whole county,” Zinke said. But McHenry County is a microcosm of the trend that opponents label “police militarization.” At about the same time that McHenry County received an MRAP to serve a county of 308,000
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WHERE IT’S AT
MCC among top Illinois colleges
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McHenry County College was ranked one of the most affordable, successful community colleges by CNN / A3 STYLE
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Harvard’s empty nest Efforts to fill former Motorola property – with everything from a water park to a prison – haven’t been successful and come as some are forecasting the demise of sprawling corporate campuses in isolated suburbs / D1
residents, so did the police department of Spring Grove, population 5,800. Police departments have not made a convincing case as to why they need equipment meant for war, said Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the
A local family’s dilemma Lifetree Cafes to screen film about a Lake in the Hills family and their experience with teen pregnancy / STYLE 8-9
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By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com
Do you think it is OK for police departments to be outfitted with military vehicles? Vote online at NWHerald.com.
McHENRY – A severe thunderstorm set off tornado sirens and downed trees and wires, causing small fires and power outages, according to fire and police dispatchers across McHenry County. The thunderstorm rolled east across the county starting around 4:30 p.m., causing the National Weather Service to issue a tornado warning for east central McHenry County and western Lake County, in paticular for towns like Lakemoor, Holiday Hills and Wauconda. The warning didn’t materialize into any tornados, but the thunderstorm accompanied by strong winds took out trees and wires, leaving more than 8,000 McHenry County ComEd customers without power at the peak, according to ComEd’s website. A flood advisory for southern McHenry County and Lake County and a severe thunderstorm watch for the both counties followed the tornado warning. The advisory warned of wind gusts up to 60 mph and quarter-sized hail. A flash flood advisory also was issued for Cook County. The National Weather Service initially reported that a thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located near Sunnyside and moving southeast at 20 mph, according to the warning issued at 4:22 p.m. Tornado sirens went off in Crystal Lake, Lakewood and Lake in the Hills, according to reports.
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