Sangamon Sun

State Rep. Tim Butler (R-Springfield) praised Sangamon County Sheriff's deputy Travis Koester for the rescue of two elderly women from a building fire on June 29.

"All in a day's work for Deputy Koester," the legislator said on Facebook recently.

In Butler's Facebook post, he shared a letter from the Sangamon County Sheriff's Office that explained what happened.

On his way to a separate call, Koester saw smoke and flames coming out of a business in the 2900 block of South MacArthur Boulevard in Springfield, the letter said. The deputy called for assistance, left his squad car and found a second-floor apartment above the closed business. When he went to get a pry bar from his vehicle, an employee of Ameren Illinois pulled in and provided the needed tool. Koester forced his way into the apartment and rescued two elderly women inside.

The call came in at approximately noon, a WICS/WRSP news report said.

The Illinois Times reported that in 2015, Sangamon County paid $150,000 to Tamara Skube, a bystander who was tased by Koester during a 2011 DUI stop. A year earlier, Skube had lied on the witness stand, which forced the dismissal of a drug case.

Sheriff Jack Campbell, then-chief deputy of the Sheriff's Office, claimed that Skube resisted arrest and the tasing was therefore justified; the Times report said. U.S. District Court Judge Sue Myerscough, however, ruled that the video of the incident spoke for itself: Skube had suffered at the hands of police brutality, and the jury did not need to decide anything other than the amount of damages to be awarded. The County therefore chose to settle rather than go to trial.