A week or so after the incident, I talked to a bartender friend of mine who claimed to have some experience in such matters. He said that the cop didn't believe me when I told him that I had not drunk anything after the bar closed in St. Ignace, probably because that's what most of his customers would have done. Although I used to drink and drive in those days, I never did develop the habit of drinking while driving, but apparently lots of people did. Anyway, my friend said that the cop was stalling to allow the last few drinks he thought I had consumed work their way into my system so they would show up on the Breathalyzer test. Since I really hadn't drunk anything since 2:30, all the cop accomplished was to allow time for some of the stuff I had consumed before 2:30 work its way out of my system.
I have never heard of our local police soliciting or accepting bribes. The only incident of police brutality I have heard of occurred before I moved here in 1967, but people were still talking about it. Two city cops allegedly handcuffed a guy to a utility pole and beat him up. Knowing the guy, he might have deserved it, but of course that didn't make it right. There was talk of a lawsuit for awhile, but the alleged victim, his family, and the local newspaper suddenly stopped talking about it. Rumor had it that the guy was paid an undisclosed amount of money to forget the incident ever happened.
I know that soldiers on guard aren't supposed to engage in idle chit chat with passers by, but I don't know if those cops in Chicago are supposed to be talking to civilians when they're on duty. We don't have police patrols on foot here, they are all in cars, although I think they ride bicycles on Mackinac Island. We do have cops who periodically visit the schools to give presentations on various subjects. Maybe Uncle Ken could arrange for something like that in his building. Your downtown office must have some kind of public relations officer who could facilitate it.
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