Oswego crash: One year later
After 5 teens lost their lives, the community took positive steps to curb underage drinking. But more must be done, and it's clear parents need to step up.
This archived account was first published Feb. 10, 2008.
OSWEGO -- A year has passed since the car crammed with eight teens slammed into a telephone poll in Oswego on Feb. 11.
(HEATHER EIDSON/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
• Photos: Tragedy in Oswego
Feb. 12: The Kendall County state's attorney's office charged the driver, Sandra Vasquez of Aurora, with four counts of felony reckless homicide, four felony counts of aggravated drunken driving leading to great bodily harm and four counts of aggravated drunken driving leading to death.
Feb. 13: Bond was set at $5 million, and an arrest warrant was issued for Vasquez.
Feb. 16: The family of 16-year-old Tiffany Urso -- killed in the accident -- filed a lawsuit in Kendall County against Vasquez seeking compensation for being deprived of her love and companionship.
Feb. 19: A 14-year-old passenger of the vehicle, James McGee, died at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge; Vasquez was later charged with additional felony charges of reckless homicide and of aggravated drunken driving leading to death.
Feb. 20: Vasquez, still hospitalized at Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora, was absent from her first court appearance where her attorney, Kathleen Colton, filed a motion to reduce her $5 million bail. The motion was not heard because Vasquez was not present.
Feb. 22: Vasquez was released from Rush-Copley Medical Center in Aurora handcuffed to a hospital bed and transported to the Kendall County jail.
Feb. 23: Vasquez was released from jail after a judge reduced her bond from $500,000, to the value of her family's home ($150,000).
Feb. 27: The families of 15-year-old Jessica Nutoni, who was killed in the crash; and 16-year-old Arielle Rexford, who was injured, filed civil suits against Vasquez.
March 2: The family of 17-year-old Matthew Frank, who died in the accident, filed a civil suit asking a sum greater than $50,000.
March 14: The family of 14-year-old Katie Merkel, who died in the accident, filed a civil suit against Vasquez demanding she pay for funeral and medical expenses plus a sum in excess of $50,000.
March 23: Vasquez pleaded innocent to 23 counts of aggravated drunken driving and reckless homicide, and her attorney filed a motion to block prosecutors from seeing her medical records, which contain reports of her blood-alcohol level shortly after the accident.
April 19: At a Kendall County coroner's inquest, an Oswego detective testified the preliminary accident reconstruction shows Vasquez was speeding when her car hit the pole.
June 5: A Kendall County judge denied a motion to remove Vasquez from electronic home monitoring.
June 22: Vasquez's attorneys did not contest a DNA sample collected at the hospital the night after the crash, which would be used to confirm that the 23-year-old was the driver.
Oct. 26: A judge suppressed a 35-minute videotaped statement that Vasquez gave Oswego police hours after the accident.
Nov. 19: Vasquez's attorney filed a motion to move the upcoming trial out of Kendall County due to the media coverage. The judge will hear arguments at a future date.
Nov. 20: Kendall County State's Attorney Eric Weis appealed the judge's decision to suppress the 35-minute videotaped statement Vasquez gave police hours after the accident. Weis said he does not expect a ruling back on this motion for "a good year."
Nov. 20: The case essentially will be suspended until an appellate court can review the judge's decision. In the meantime, all conditions of Vasquez's bond have been withdrawn, she was taken off an electronic monitoring device and is allowed to travel wherever she wants.
2009: Weis said he anticipates Vasquez's trial will begin sometime in 2009.
The five white crosses planted at the edge of Route 31 -- one for each teen who died -- have weathered 12 months of snow, rain and sunny summer days.
This week, some people will reflect on the accident and mourn the victims, who police said were leaving a party when they piled into a 23-year-old woman's Infiniti Q30.
There are others who will try to forget.
The community, of course, has moved forward, implementing an array of new programs, largely in the schools, to raise awareness of underage drinking and to prevent such an overwhelming tragedy from striking again.
But it still seems that more could -- and needs -- to be done.
The responsibility rests with no single leader or select group of people but with the entire community.
Oswego's parents and childless couples, its local youths and senior citizens need to come together in a town meeting format to discuss the root of the problem and propose real solutions that will work in their community.
The village's leaders should be involved in the discussion, as well as local law enforcement, substance-abuse professionals and educators.
This comprehensive approach has worked in other communities.
Take the village of Hinsdale, which held a town meeting several years ago when police realized they couldn't "arrest themselves" out of the community's problem with underage alcohol abuse.
Together, the town created a multi-strategy program, which includes using community service for offenders and an anonymous tip hotline to report suspected teen parties to the police.
"There's always more that can be done," Oswego School Superintendent David Behlow said recently.
Maybe one year later is the perfect time.
******
The accident jolted Oswego awake early that Sunday morning in 2007.
There were the blaring sirens and the helicopter blades thumping the air, as the four seriously injured teens and the driver were rushed to area hospitals.
When the shock faded and the mourning began, the community couldn't ignore that Oswego -- like many other towns scattered across the country -- has a teen drinking problem.
Village leaders suggested the community meet and all "get their heads together to make sure this never happens again."
That meeting was never held.
Instead, the school district, local legislators, and state and area organizations launched plans to address the problem, but in a largely piecemeal fashion.
House Minority Leader Tom Cross of Oswego crafted legislation -- which became law in January -- to suspend driving privileges of underage drinkers for three months after they're caught.
Around the same time, Illinois Liquor Commission officials brought a new program to Kendall County, promising to send special investigators to track where alcohol came from anytime underage drinking is suspected.
Oswego school officials took action, meeting with the police department and implementing new alcohol-awareness measures for students and their parents.
The school district is in the process of applying for a competitive federal grant to enhance its substance abuse program and has participated in discussions hosted by the Kendall County Network Project, a group that aims to address and remedy issues concerning the well-being of the county's youth.
Even student leaders at Oswego High School have joined the alcohol-awareness effort, creating a fundraising project to finance prevention programs.
But many local teenagers still aren't sure their classmates or their parents have learned a lesson.
In December, 18-year-old Matt Allseitz, a friend of crash victim Matt Frank, said "half the people from our group (of friends) have changed." The others, he noted, are still drinking and partying.
Even shortly after the accident occurred, in April, 17-year-old Christina Lyznicki said Oswego students were still drinking alcohol on the weekend.
Lyznicki said, "I know people who can say, 'Any weekend, we can go to my house and my parents will buy (alcohol) for us.'"
In 2007, Oswego police made 79 arrests for underage drinking. That is 28 more arrests than were made in 2006, according to the department's data. A majority of those arrests, both years, were youths between the ages of 17 and 20.
Oswego Detective Rob Sherwood said the key to curbing these violations is educating parents and getting them more involved in their children's lives. The question is: How does a community make parents get more involved?
The village of Hinsdale thinks it may have found a solution.
Several years ago, Hinsdale police noticed the number of teens they arrested for underage drinking continued to rise each year. Local teens were having house parties when their parents left town, and youths were overdosing on alcohol.
"We came to the conclusion," said Hinsdale Police Chief Bradley Bloom, "that we're not going to have an effect on reducing the number of teens using alcohol by continuing to arrest them."
So the police department called a town meeting where the community brainstormed and discussed an array of ideas they thought could curb alcohol abuse. From that meeting the Hinsdale Police created Operation STAAT -- Stop Teen Alcohol Abuse Together -- which they implemented in 2004.
Under this program, teens arrested on an alcohol violation for the first time must complete 10 hours of community service in the village rather than pay a fine.
Other program features include sending notification letters to the owners of registered vehicles when the vehicle is found parked near a suspected party house and an arrest-free alternative for parents.
This latter option enables parents to ask an officer to come to their home and perform a preliminary breath test on their teen if they think he or she has been drinking. When the test is positive for alcohol, the officer sets up an appointment at the police department for the teen and his parents, where they will discuss a contract the youth has to abide by and a period of community-service hours he must complete.
The teen is not arrested, and the school is not notified if the youth completes the community service and the parental contract.
"The solution," Bloom explained, "certainly is not higher fines or bigger penalties. The solution is parents intervening."
Two years after the STAAT program was implemented in Hinsdale, police said the number of arrests for underage drinking that year dropped from 129 the year before to 73.
Operation STAAT may not work in Oswego. But the idea is that the community comes together and finds a solution that fits its needs.
Those who doubt the urgency of addressing this issue, just listen to the community's young people.
"I think for those that are the closest to (the teens killed), they will change and be a little bit safer," Oswego teen Shane Niels said days after the accident.
"... But I think for the most part, give it a couple months and this will pass."
Don't let that prediction come true: "It happened before. It will probably happen again."
