By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – You can’t write the story of wrongful convictions without at least one chapter about Illinois. And the police officers of tomorrow will perhaps erase the state’s shameful legacy.

The director of the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mike Schlosser, says many wrongful convictions result from something other than bad cops knowing they have the wrong guy.

“A lot of officers have a tendency to get what we call ‘tunnel vision,” says Schlosser. “A lot of times there’s information coming in to build that case (of the person the officer believes is the suspect), but, a lot of times there’s other evidence coming in that sometimes don’t get as much attention as they should, because we’ve kind of almost convinced ourselves that this is the person that did it.

“That’s just kind of how your mind works.”

And if you’re told you’re on video at the crime scene, sign this and maybe you’ll get a lighter sentence. Schlosser says that’s why some innocent men and women falsely confess.

It’s now state law that aspiring police officers receive this training.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]