MEG ARRESTS 30 AT MUSIC FEST

Cash, Mushrooms, LSD, Pot, Cocaine And Other Drugs Seized

CHILLICOTHE - Not everyone at last weekend's Summer Camp music
festival at Three Sisters Park was there for a good time.

Just as in years past, a handful of undercover officers walked among
the thousands of revelers, nabbing those who brought drugs to the party.

Agents with the Multi-County Narcotics Enforcement Group arrested 30
people involved in the illegal sale of drugs. They also seized
$13,413 and recovered 2,373 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, 91 hits of
LSD, 394 grams of marijuana and smaller amounts of heroin, cocaine,
Ecstasy and ketamine.

"It was pretty much the same thing this year as last year," MEG
director Larry Hawkins said Wednesday of the three-day festival's
open-air drug market. "We still had, like last year, people calling
out what drugs they had for sale, but they were a little less obvious
about it."

MEG officers dressed in street clothes worked their way through the
crowds, buying drugs from people who then were arrested by a cover
team dressed in plainclothes, Hawkins said.

Among those arrested were a Naperville private schoolteacher and an
employee in the Juvenile Justice Division of the Cook County Public
Defender's Office.

No local people were arrested in the bust. More than half of the
campers arrested traveled in from out of state.

"These types of music festivals attract people who like to peddle
drugs," Hawkins said. "Whether it's in Chillicothe or not, it's going
to attract these types of people."

Last year, MEG arrested 29 people and seized an estimated $23,000 in
narcotics and cash.

Though the busts received a lot of media attention in the past, it
doesn't appear the publicity has hurt Summer Camp attendance.
Preliminary figures show about 8,300 attendees this year, up slightly
from 2005, Three Sisters Park Manager Chris Cassidy said Wednesday.

"We're glad they (officers) are there. . . . I think it is very good
for the event. We don't want drugs there. Hopefully (their presence)
clears it up, keeps the bad apples out," he said.

The festival has a significant impact on Chillicothe businesses, city
officials say. Some of them reported business last weekend was four
times what it usually is, Cassidy said.

Economic Development Director Lisa Burnett said Chillicothe's two
hotels were booked up Thursday through Sunday, and the gas pumps and
grocery stores stayed busy.

With the thousands of attendees, 30 arrests seems minimal, she said.

"This is a very safe, nonviolent event, with peace-loving people.

"Those people (arrested) probably won't come back. I don't think it
will keep the others from coming back, though," she said.

Illinois State Police netted more than a dozen arrests conducting
traffic stops on Illinois Route 29 south of Chillicothe. Peoria
County sheriff's deputies and police from Washington and Peoria
Heights assisted during the music fest.

"As long as they have a music festival with that amount of people
we'll have people up there conducting narcotics investigations,"
Hawkins said. "We'll be there next year."