It’s an important milestone… the 100th anniversary of the Illinois State Police.
Governor JB Pritzker took part in ceremonies Tuesday at the State Capitol to mark the agency’s centennial, which officially takes place on April 1st. Established in 1922 to patrol the state’s growing network of highways, the State Police began with eight officers riding World War I surplus motorcycles. The agency now has more than 18-hundred sworn officers and nearly 11-hundred civilian employees.
Director Brendan Kelly says the state police mission now covers everything from highway patrol to tracking down illegal firearms to drug interdiction and child sex crime investigation.
