Police: Passenger Rants at 9-1-1 after Friend’s DUI Arrest in Illinois
Bill Bird, The Herald News (Joliet, Illinois)
Figuratively speaking, Crystal Taborn, of Joliet, didn’t take things lying down after Naperville police arrested her friend for drunken driving.
But literally speaking, Taborn, 31, did take things lying down, sprawling on the grass near her friend’s car and repeatedly calling 9-1-1 in angry protest of their plight, according to police.
Taborn’s friend Latoya D. Edwards, 31, also of Joliet, ended up being arrested and charged with drunken driving and improper lane use. Taborn, for her trouble, was charged with disorderly conduct/making a false 9-1-1 call, being an intoxicated pedestrian walking on a roadway and interfering with a city officer or employee.
Between them, Taborn and Edwards have received 43 traffic tickets between 1997 and 2008 for charges that included driving without licenses, driving without insurance and speeding, according to Will County Circuit Court records.
The women’s latest misadventure unfolded about 2:38 a.m. Sept. 29. That was when a Naperville police officer on routine patrol duty curbed Edwards’ black, 2014 Toyota Camry at Royce Road and Washington Street, near the River Woods neighborhood on the city’s far southeast side.
Sgt. Lou Cammiso said Edwards “was pulled over for lane violations and discovered to be, apparently, under the influence” of alcohol. “Taborn, who was also reportedly intoxicated, was told she needed to call for a ride, as the car was being towed, and she could not drive,” Cammiso said via email.
Police summoned a taxicab for Taborn, “but prior to the cab arriving, she repeatedly called 9-1-1,” Cammiso said.
A written police report stated Taborn “continually called 9-1-1” but did not indicate the number of times she allegedly did so. Cammiso said he did not know the content of those calls, other than Taborn each time was reputedly “relaying her displeasure with the police.”
Taborn allegedly made at least some of the calls after getting out of the car and then lying down on a grassy median near the scene.
Cammiso said she was charged with being an intoxicated pedestrian on a roadway because “she was lying in the grass on the side of the road and would not get up” after being told to do so by police.
Joliet police arrested Taborn on Dec. 28, 2006, for driving with a license that had been suspended or revoked between four and nine times, court records revealed. She pleaded guilty to that charge, and on April 15, 2008, was sentenced to 120 days in the Will County jail, placed on two years of conditional discharge, and assessed fines and court costs totaling $490, records showed.
Taborn received a total of 30 tickets on different occasions between 1997 and 2007, according to records. Edwards was cited 13 times between 1999 and 2008, twice for driving in the wrong direction on a one-way street, records indicated.
Both women are free on bond and have arraignment dates pending in DuPage County Circuit Court in Wheaton.
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