Cyndi Loza

The Embree family is hoping to move on after receiving some closure this week for an incident in which a Wheaton police officer fell asleep at the wheel and crashed her squad car into their home last fall.

Nearly six months to the day after the Sept. 24 incident, the Wheaton Police Department announced Monday it has suspended night-shift officer Dana Opalinski for six days without pay and benefits.

A woman who answered the door Tuesday at the Embrees’ home, 170 Brighton Drive, said her family was not commenting on their reaction to the officer’s recent suspension.

“We just want to put it all behind us,” the woman said.

The decision to suspend the officer was based on the fact that the crash was “unintentional,” according to a news release issued by the city Monday afternoon.

City officials have said the delay in action was because of a disagreement between the homeowner’s insurance company and the contractors repairing the home, and that they were waiting on a final cost of damage before moving forward with disciplining the officer.

“Every (disciplinary) case is different,” Wheaton Police Chief Mark W. Field said.

Obtained by the Wheaton Leader through a Freedom of Information Act request, the accident report said the officer was driving south on Winners Cup Circle when she fell asleep at about 4 a.m. Sept. 24.

The officer’s name, sex, age and driver’s license number were redacted from the report with a black marker. The report lists the officer’s address as 900 W. Liberty Drive, which is the location of the police department.

According to the report, the squad car continued through the intersection of Winners Cup and Brighton Drive, hopped the curb and then struck a mailbox, pulling it out of the ground. The squad car continued and struck the concrete porch in front of the house.

The officer was awakened by the impact, and “she believed she hit the gas pedal and the vehicle accelerated through the front door,” the report said.

The report indicates an injury resulted from the incident, but it does not go into details or specify who was injured. The residents of the home were not injured in the crash.