Lake County Sheriff Has Had Multiple Traffic Accidents

Drunken driving by police officers is not the only thing that the Lake County Sheriff’s office has been ignoring. A recent investigation has revealed that, during his tenure, Sheriff Mark Curran, himself, has been involved in multiple car accidents. He was the driver in three accidents within an 18-month period that resulted in thousands of dollars in damages. Under standard procedure, whenever a deputy is involved in multiple traffic accidents there is a review and if the deputy is found to be at fault there is risk of having a letter placed in employee file, temporary suspension of driving privileges, and possibly worse punishments

“Mark Curran is being held to a different standard than his own deputies, noted Sheriff candidate John Idleburg. “A leader leads by example, and applies the same standard of conduct to himself.”

In response to Freedom of Information Act Requests to the Sheriff’s Office and the Accident Review Board, the Idleburg campaign reviewed accident reports and cost of repairs to damaged vehicles. In all three accidents, Curran was listed as Driver Unit #1, the responsible party on traffic crash reports. The FOIA response indicated that the only corrective action taken was a letter in his file on the third accident in which Curran was found negligent while operating a county vehicle due to “lack of situational awareness.” A Deputy involved in the same number of accidents in such a small time frame would have been subject to disciplinary action, including suspension.

More startling is Curran’s violation of policy of not having these crashes investigated at the time of occurrence in order to protect the County from future liability. For example, during a rear-end crash on January 14, 2014, Curran exchanged information with the other driver and the report was filed at a later date covering thousands of dollars in damage. Another rear-end crash occurred just one month later on February 14, 2014, Curran again filed the report late and reported that the other driver was not concerned. When the delayed report was completed, no information on the other vehicle, or its driver or occupants were available.

“If standards and policies are not adhered to, they are nothing more than a piece of paper. A professional leader sets a positive image and does not violate his policies and does not apply a different standard to himself,” declared Idleburg.