Jeffrey Lilly never thought he would be earning a living working out of a basement, especially the basement of someone`s home.
But that is just what he does as one of seven police officers in the Kildeer Police Department, which is located in the home of Lauri Schreiber, Kildeer village administrator.
Lilly, 39, has done several things he never would have dreamed of when he was a senior in high school in 1969, he says. He was working part time then as a dispatcher for the Cary Police Department.
”I never thought I would become a cop,” he says with a laugh. ”I planned on attending IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) in the fall and studying engineering.” Today Lilly is a sergeant and has been working with the department full time since 1986.
”I really wish I knew what made me change my mind,” he says. ”It couldn`t have been the money. I was earning $1.10 an hour (as a dispatcher)-
and that was after my raise,” he says with a grin.
Lilly and his wife of 10 years, Julie, have lived in the far northwest suburb of Oakwood Hills for 10 years. They have two sons, Richard, 4, and Tom, 3. Lilly and his wife grew up in nearby Cary, where their parents still live. ”We are a close-knit family,” Lilly says. ”Family is so important. I feel lucky we have each other and that we all get along fairly well.”
Lilly says a strong commitment to family might have had something to do with his eventual career choice. He saw in the camaraderie between the Cary police officers that same sense of family. ”These guys share experiences no one else can, so they understand and take care of each other.”
Because of the risks and stress associated with police work, Lilly says, each officer realizes how important he is to the other.
Lilly says he also might have been drawn to police work by the voluntarism he witnessed among the officers.
”Their philosophy toward community and public service is great. A lot of those guys got into volunteering for the Fire Department and rescue squad.”
Lilly`s eventual decision to go into law enforcement was more than a simple job choice, he says. ”I chose a vocation; I chose community service.” Lilly is department supervisor, second-in-command to Chief Jay Mills. He is responsible primarily for keeping up the group`s morale, Lilly says.
”Everybody does everything here” because the department is so small that each officer must know every facet of police work, Lilly says. ”We don`t have time to train someone new,” he adds. The officers each have at least 10 to 15 years` experience.
Maintaining morale in a department that doesn`t yet have its own facilities is vital, Lilly says. ”We keep the guys in good equipment-new squad cars and uniforms. It`s also important to keep the department well-trained through seminars on new law enforcement technologies.”
Staying on law enforcement`s cutting edge keeps the officers sharp and feeling good about themselves, he adds.
Lilly is also the firearms officer. He is responsible for ensuring that each officer is proficient with his weapons, which include an automatic pistol (sidearm) and a shoulder weapon or rifle.
”Every other month, I set up a firing range,” he says. ”Last month we trained in the dark with flashlights and falling targets.”
The department doesn`t have its own firing range so the officers use the Northbrook Police Department`s range.
Lilly is resourceful, Mills says. ”He is very knowledgeable about a lot of things. He did all of the wiring of the electronic equipment (lights, radio and sirens) in our new squad cars.”
Lilly is also a good patrol officer with a special feel for the community, Mills says. Lilly says he believes his responsibility to the community extends beyond his job, and this is often reflected in tasks he does when he is off-duty, such as making frequent night patrols, Mills says.
When Lilly decided he wanted to be a police officer, he was 18, which was too young to apply to a department. ”I had to be 21 to apply” by state law, he says.
So he put his dreams of a law enforcement career on hold and worked as an emergency medical technician for several private ambulance companies from 1970 to 1974. In 1974 he went to work for Lake Zurich`s rescue department for a year, and while he was there he became a paramedic.
Lilly feels his certification as a paramedic is in keeping with his public-service goals.
In 1977 he joined the Cary department full time. He did most of his basic training then, attending the University of Illinois Police Training Institute in Champaign in 1978.
Lilly joined the Kildeer department when it opened its doors to full-time officers in 1986. The department, which was formed in 1975, has five full-time and two part-time officers.
In his first two years with the department, Lilly took what the state considered to be advanced training at the institute in Champaign: courses in tactical firearms, police firearms instruction, and how to enforce drunken-driving laws and truck weight regulations. He also took accident
investigation training at the Northwestern University Traffic Institute, Evanston, in 1986.
Lilly`s favorite part of the job is the time he spends ”working the streets” in his car, ”especially driving with the window open on a warm, moonlit night,” he says. ”It can be so peaceful.” He gets restless if he is stuck behind a desk for too long, he adds.
Kildeer, which has a population of about 2,400, has a low crime rate, Lilly says. ”We have one or two residential burglaries a year.”
Much of the department`s time is spent responding to traffic accidents and answering about 1,800 service calls a year, Mills says. ”Regardless of the problem, it deserves a response,” he says.
”We keep a fairly close relationship with our residents,” Lilly says.
”We know who they are, and they know who we are.”
The ratio of officers to residents is about 1 to 350. ”But it works out pretty well,” Lilly says. ”We are familiar with who is on vacation, and who should and should not be around.”
The village has a successful neighborhood watch program, Mills says. As part of the program, the department asks residents leaving town to stop at the department and fill out an observation form. The officers will then watch the house, especially after dark, for any unusual activity, he adds.
”This is where the real dangers of police work come into play,” Lilly says with a grin. ”We have had guys really hurt themselves checking out houses after dark. We had one guy fall into a swimming pool. We have had guys `clotheslined` and soaked by sump pumps.”
Occasionally serious incidents do occur, he adds. In May a police pursuit of two auto theft suspects ended with the suspects shooting and seriously wounding a police detective after crashing their car into a tree.
”One of the suspects was not apprehended and fled on foot” into a swampy area near Kildeer, Lilly says. ”Our job became to maintain internal security (within the community). We began a house-to-house search (for the fugitive), who was apprehended by police without (endangering) the community. But if it got dark before we caught this guy, we would have been willing to call the nearly 750 homes on our resident list to make sure everybody was OK.”
Although Kildeer does not have to deal with the same crime problems-such as urban gangs, drugs and murder-as the Chicago Police Department, the department should be able to deal with any crisis that arises, Lilly says.
”Policing is policing,” agrees Mills, who was sworn in as Kildeer`s chief in September. (Previously he was deputy chief in Northbrook. He retired from that department after 28 years in 1987.)
He feels, and Lilly agrees, that the way an officer handles himself often dictates a situation`s outcome.
A good police officer possesses two qualities: common sense and good people skills, Lilly explains. ”Either you have it, or you don`t.”
Experience is the best, and most demanding, teacher, he says.
About 15 years ago, Lilly was involved in an incident that could have had tragic consequences, he says. ”Some (guys) fired shots at each other outside a tavern in Lake Zurich. We responded. Nobody was hurt, and arrests were made. ”I stayed after everybody left to wait for a tow truck to haul away a suspect`s car,” he says. ”The truck arrived and we were hooking it up when some guy walked out of the bar and said, `What are you doing with my car?`
” Lilly says. The owner of the car had been overlooked in the excitement when arrests were made earlier so Lilly arrested the man.
”Suddenly about 8 or 10 guys piled out of the bar and surrounded me, demanding that I let their friend go. So I cut him loose, and he took off and ran down the road.”
Although the suspect, who was apprehended, escaped, Lilly avoided a dangerous situation when the men threatening him backed off.
Lilly says he believes that had he acted in a hostile manner he could have been killed. He adds that he bought a bulletproof vest the next day.
Near misses have never stopped Lilly from doing the police work that he loves. But his police job is only part of his dedication to community service. Since 1984 he also has been a paid-on-call firefighter with the Cary Fire Protection District, able to respond to calls on an ”every-other-day” basis, he says.
For 17 years Lilly also has maintained his paramedic status, every year completing the 40 hours of training needed for recertification: 18 classroom hours and 22 hours in a hospital setting. He is a paid-on-call paramedic with the Cary fire district.
”I do it every year because I enjoy it,” he says. ”When I make 20 years, I may retire. I am getting a little old to roll out of bed at 3 in the morning.”
Even in his spare time, Lilly doesn`t forget about his work. ”Sometimes on Sunday, when I am home and the kids are driving me crazy, I say, `Come on, beeper, go off,` ” he says with a laugh. (He has two, one for the Police Department and one for the Fire Protection District.)
Lilly says he is serious in saying that he loves his work as much as play.
”Sure, I have bad days, when things go wrong. But I am a fatalist. You do your job the best you can, and you win some and you lose some,” he says.
The important thing is never to forget that one person can make a difference, he says.
”I am constantly learning, even from the losses. The person who has stopped learning has stopped living.”
