* 2023…
An Illinois State Police trooper is “Illinois’ Top Cop” making 145 DUI arrests in 2022, according to the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists.
The report released Thursday provides DUI arrest data for various police agencies statewide. AAIM has conducted the annual surveys for 33 years with taxpayer-funded grants from the Illinois Department of Transportation.
Topping individual law enforcement officers, Illinois State Police Trooper Kevin Bradley was listed as Illinois’ Top Cop. Bradley had 145 DUI arrests in 2022.
* ABC 7 a couple of weeks ago…
For several years, an Illinois State Police Trooper was named by a nonprofit the “Top Cop”: a moniker given to the member of law enforcement who has made the most DUI arrests in a single year statewide.
But many of those arrested drivers tell the ABC7 I-Team they were sober, and in some cases, it took years to clear their names of serious criminal charges.
A driver from Wisconsin says he owned his own trucking company but had to shut it down after losing his commercial driving license following a DUI arrest by the state trooper. Nearly two years later, the charges against him were ultimately dismissed, and he’s since filed a lawsuit. […]
After reviewing more than 300 DUI prosecutions listing Trooper Bradley as the arresting officer since 2023, the I-Team found 174 drivers were found not guilty at trial, or their cases were dismissed before adjudication, like in Ian Renfro’s case.
According to court records, 105 drivers were found guilty, with 96 of those drivers accepting plea deals for lesser charges. As of last month, 40 cases are still pending.
* May 7…
A restaurant executive arrested by an Illinois State Police trooper on DUI charges told the ABC 7 I-Team when he discovered his MacBook was missing from his car, he tracked it to the house of the trooper who arrested him.
What followed was captured in a 911 call recording, a cell phone video, and an internal investigation by the Illinois State Police, all obtained by the I-Team. […]
The son of a Chicago police officer, Holland says he was the designated driver for a co-worker after working overnight when he was pulled over by Trooper Bradley. […]
Bradley then asked Holland to “relocate” by driving down the road to a gas station in Worth Township, passing through several intersections and traffic lights. […]
Later that day, when Holland needed his MacBook, he said he noticed it wasn’t listed on his inventory slip, so he assumed it must be with his car at the tow yard.
“I decided to ping my MacBook,” Holland told the I-Team, “and it pinged to an address.”
Using Apple’s “Find My” feature, Holland says his MacBook was not pinging at the tow yard with his car, rather it was showing up at a Tinley Park home.
“I was fearful of going to retrieve my item,” Holland explained. “And I just had to motivate myself and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to go get it.’”
Holland says he found his courage, and drove over to the address, where after knocking on the front door, he was eventually met by Trooper Bradley.
* May 14…
In cases where field sobriety tests were performed, the attorneys found the results were the same across nearly the entire board among Bradley’s arrests.
“They [the tests] just didn’t come back in a way that was scientifically plausible,” Segal said. “If someone’s conducting a test 463 times, and in 462 of them, the individual has not only failed, but shown all six clues… It’s not like there’s a normal distribution, where some people show zero, few more show one. The most is three, kind of a bell curve.”
Segal continued, “With Trooper Bradley’s scientific results, you just see one column to the max and another and all the other columns basically blank.”
In addition, Segal and Sansonetti told the I-Team they discovered what they considered a “smoking gun.”
“We actually came across what we consider a smoking gun, which was a full field report, which was copy and pasted verbatim from one arrestee to another arrestee,” Segal said. “And that was shocking.”
The field reports were for two DUI arrests that occurred in March 2022. In the first arrest, according to the report, a driver was arrested for DUI on March 20, 2022, after telling Bradley they were taking the medication Lexapro. More than 24 hours later, according to a separate report, Bradley arrested another driver for DUI but the narrative section of the report appears to be copied word for word, including the first driver’s name and details from the prior night.
“The reports were 100% verbatim,” Sansonetti said. “It included the wrong person’s name. The first person who was arrested, Trooper Bradley had written his name wrong, and that same typo was in the second report. So that was startling to me.”
According to court records, in both cases, DUI charges were dismissed by prosecutors.
* Also…
The attorneys believe there’s a connection between the number of arrests made by Trooper Bradley, and the amount of overtime he has earned through court appearances.
As the I-Team previously reported, Bradley tripled his salary in 2024, earning nearly $250,000 in a single year.
“As his DUI totals went up, year after year after year, so did his salary,” Segal said. “[Troopers] make overtime pay for just showing up at court. So even if they show up at court, they testify and the case is garbage and they lose, the trooper still gets paid.”
I reached out to the Alliance Against Intoxicated Motorists a week ago Friday. I have not yet heard back.
- Paul Powell - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 11:34 am:
See if you can get a comment from DAMMAD
Drunks against Mother’s against drunk driving
- Friendly Bob Adams - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 11:34 am:
If you can’t trust the police, who can you trust? This guy sounds like he should get a new job….
- don the legend - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 11:38 am:
==This guy sounds like he should get a new job….==
The ILGOP is always looking for a few good Law and Order types.
- Roadrager - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 11:45 am:
Poor Trooper Bradley. How is his family going to make it when he’s placed on paid leave during the investigation and can’t earn any overtime for thirty, maybe even sixty days?
- Candy Dogood - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 11:46 am:
===This guy sounds like he should get a new job===
Really? Seems like he should be subject to a criminal investigation. He’s destroyed lives and caused members of the public significant harm while pilfering from the taxpayers — to the point where he literally stole a laptop from a member of the public.
- CA-HOON! - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 11:47 am:
Any police department which measures performance just on raw numbers (contacts, stops, arrests, etc) is incentivizing misconduct, because officers *will* take any opportunity to artificially inflate such numbers since it makes them look better. We already know this is a problem (in spite of cops’ protestations that they don’t have any) and why some municipalities have outright banned the use of quotas.
So if an outside org offers the same kind of raw-numbers performance awards, no one should be surprised that there would be fraud and abuse. The only thing that should surprise anyone is that it wasn’t caught for so long.
- Sir Reel - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 11:49 am:
This is another example of a State employee gaming the system to increase their pay. In my former agency I noticed some employees would schedule meetings late in the day and not at their office to incur travel-related paid OT. Nice gig if you can get it. Most State employees don’t game the system but those that do hurt the reputation of all.
- Demoralized - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 12:01 pm:
There should NEVER be an award in policing that involves the most tickets issued.
- Flyin' Elvis'-Utah Chapter - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 12:11 pm:
I began my career in law enforcement in 1989. A number of cops I see today, local and state, wouldn’t have bothered to fill out an application back in the proverbial day.
Visible tattoos? Don’t waste your time.
Misdemeanors, even as a youth? Forget about it.
Not defending it, simply stating fact.
Not all cops were good back then, just like not all are bad today. But over the years slowly eroding hiring standards have come home to roost with a number of departments.
My two cents.
- Braceville Brad - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 12:19 pm:
What @Candy_DoGood said^^^^
- Northwest by North - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 12:23 pm:
Unfortunately, this is systemic failure: MSgt, Lt & Capt all failed to catch or ignored the cut & paste job on reports. Learned in my 1st year on the job that 2 identical reports are the signs of a problem that needs to be looked into; whether same incident from 2 officers or same officer with 2 reports. ISP, you’re better than this.
- Occasionally Moderated - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 12:24 pm:
He has to go. It is my professional opinion based on my training and experience that thieves rarely get caught on their first offense. I suspect a search of his house garage and basement would be a bonanza of stolen property.
Someone should audit his Wex card too.
That being said, not taking chemical tests if you aren’t intoxicated is just stupid.
- MadCo disease - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 12:41 pm:
This seems like a good reason for a current HGOP sponsored bill that would end quotas for cops. . .
- Annon'in - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 12:53 pm:
Hmm looks like Trooper’s got some ’splainin to do meanwhile lots of folks have spent a lot of cash
- Public Service Excellence - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 1:08 pm:
The only way a cop should get OT pay for testifying in court is if it causes them to work more than 40 hours in the week. Going to court to justify a charge you filed against someone is and should be considered a core part of police work.
- Yellow Dog Democrat - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 1:09 pm:
1. Prosecute, and no plea bargain without forfeiture of his pension.
2. Add DUI to the racial profiling study, we can stop giving grants to AAIM and IDOT can just publish the data.
- Anyone Remember - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 1:26 pm:
Not sure on the exact legal language, but he should forfeit his ability to use federal concealed carry for retired law enforcement officers.
- Candy Dogood - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 1:34 pm:
===As the I-Team previously reported, Bradley tripled his salary in 2024, earning nearly $250,000 in a single year===
One would think someone within the agency would be paying enough attention to overtime to review this kind of payout for overtime. We’ve seen this before where someone is claiming to have worked 80 hours every week when they clearly weren’t.
One would also think that a supervisor would have time to question some of these arrests.
What kind of State Police is the Governor running?
- Google is Your Friend - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 1:43 pm:
- Northwest by North - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 12:23 pm:
==ISP, you’re better than this==
But the evidence here says they are not. Also says a lot that for this story to get even minimal traction, it took the kid of another cop complaining. What would be in store for us schmucks without connections behind the blue line?
- Annon3 - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 2:02 pm:
Roadrager almost spit my coffee out!
- Red headed step child - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 2:38 pm:
Oh, btw , depending on his years, that240k salary is ” pensionable”… Start doing the math
- Cubs in '16 - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 3:14 pm:
Seems like an easy fix for this example. Base the incentive on convictions instead of arrests.
- Give Us Barabbas - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 3:17 pm:
The motto for state police is that ISP stands for Integrity, Service, and Pride. They cast themselves as elite law officers. There is no integrity in an officer faking reports, gaming overtime, and stealing the property of suspected offenders. There is no pride for the department or the state when incidents like these make the public question that integrity and impartiality and dedication to service. The police union should not dispute this man’s discharge but you know they will. Which only add to the public perception of a dishonest and self-serving tribe of sanctioned warlords out there, instead of guardians and protectors.
Once he’s had his day in court, I hope he’s made an example of. For the good of his fellow officers and their reputation.
- Thomas Paine - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 4:07 pm:
=== Base the incentive on convictions instead of arrests ===
Oh sure. He lied on arrest reports and stole from a towed vehicle, but he would never lie on the stand.
Except, he probably did.
Probably every DUI case he was on is getting tossed.
- Stephanie Kollmann - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 4:31 pm:
Could make one wonder what the rest of the top 10 (or more) contestants get up to.
==Base the incentive on convictions instead of arrests.==
This does not disincentivize lying. If anything, it encourages sticking to the lie when challenged.
- Occasionally Moderated - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 5:31 pm:
==The attorneys believe there’s a connection between the number of arrests made by Trooper Bradley, and the amount of overtime he has earned through court appearances.==
Attorneys should have asked some questions before saying this. He is likely making most of his overtime on federally funded overtime for traffic enforcement where off duty police officers are “hired back” to work overtime on their day off or after a regular work shift. Completely legitimate. Here is the scam: A D.U.I. Report generates a fair amount of paperwork, even if you are doing reports in a cut and paste manner like this guy. In Chicago, overtime of this type is virtually unlimited. Guys like this work the federally funded overtime, make back to back arrests on the overtime shift and then they do all the resulting paperwork during their regular shift. So on paper he looks like a very active employee and he is probably getting great ratings for promotion to the next rank. And he shoots his potential pension through the roof.
== Could make one wonder what the rest of the top 10 (or more) contestants get up to.==
Let’s not do that. Most of these awards go to parts of the state where there is no shortage of intoxicated drivers. Finding a legitimately D.U.I. Driver In the Chicago area is no special trick. There are some truly hard working officers out there doing the right thing.
- Frida's Boss - Monday, May 18, 26 @ 5:36 pm:
Sounds like a big, giant class action lawsuit is coming soon.
- anon2 - Tuesday, May 19, 26 @ 3:05 pm:
It sounds like poor supervision at the ISP.