Nice Catches!

In the movies and on television, it seems, the police always solve the crime and “catch their man.”

Unfortunately, that is not always the case in real life.

Which is exactly why we at the Morris Daily Herald feel it important to applaud area police departments, which seem to be having a high degree of success in the early days of 2012. We are especially aware of, and enthused by, the fact the solutions to many of these recent area crimes have been found through the cooperative efforts of several agencies.

It appears to bring proof to the old adage about teams being greater than the sum of their parts. Or at least the one that talks about the benefits of putting your heads together.

Just a review of the mere handful of newspapers we have generated thus far this year shows that the cooperation has been widespread and diverse. Some of the work in partnership has been planned and organized, like the investigation that led to charges being brought against a former Morris Community High School teacher, and the 13 arrests made by the Metropolitan Area Narcotics Squad following multiple narcotic investigations in Grundy County.

Much of it, however, has been necessitated by circumstances.

We are specifically considering the arrests of two Earlville men Friday, Jan. 6, for a string of burglaries in the Coal City-Diamond area and another rash of them in Lake Holiday in La Salle County, as well as the recapture of a man who escaped from custody while being treated at Morris Hospital that same day.

In the burglaries, Coal City Police Chief Keith Hefner indicated, La Salle, Grundy, Coal City and Livingston county authorities worked on the investigation.

“This is a great example of how police departments working together, regardless of jurisdictional boundaries, can accomplish much,” Hefner said in the aftermath of those arrests.

Another great example is the efforts to recapture Craig A. Hufford after he fled in a stolen car from Morris Hospital while wearing only a hospital gown. Before Hufford, who managed to get as far as Shorewood, was recaught on Interstate 80 at Minooka, multiple police agencies had become involved in the effort to find him and, literally, chase him down.