A police officer accused of being under the influence of alcohol when he crashed his squad car told another officer that “those glasses of eggnog must have been bigger than I thought,” according to a prosecutor at the start of the man’s trial Wednesday.
Oscar Baez, who resigned from the Prairie Grove Police Department the day after the Nov. 29 crash, is charged with felony official misconduct and misdemeanor DUI. He was also cited for allegedly running a stop sign before crashing his patrolling SUV into a pole while on duty.
Police officers and McHenry County Sheriff’s deputies who arrived on the scene of the crash along Illinois Highway 31 after 10:30 p.m. testified to finding the police department vehicle’s “heavily damaged” front end smashed up against a pole, which had nearly cracked in half from the impact.
