The Chicago Police Department says a member of its force refused to take a Breathalyzer test after a fatal car crash last fall. They say a videotape shows the officer hoisting drinks in a tavern just before the crash. One witness says the officer was weaving across the road’s center line. Another says he was driving about twice the speed limit. But a judge last month dismissed DUI charges. And we’ve learned that the officer has recovered his driving privileges. That’s despite an Illinois law requiring a six-month suspension for refusing to blow. The case has the victims’ families wondering whether Chicago police who drink and drive are above the law.

The night before Thanksgiving, tactical officer John Ardelean finished his work on Chicago’s North Side and headed for this techno bar in the Loop.

MITCHELL (standup): The police say Ardelean appeared on a surveillance video here at Martini Ranch for two-and-a-half hours. They say the video shows him drinking from a shot glass and three bigger glasses.

Within 35 minutes of leaving the bar, Ardelean was back in his district, driving north on Damen Avenue. That’s when his SUV broadsided a sedan carrying three Mexican-Americans from Cicero. The crash killed two of them, 21-year-old Erick Lagunas and his best friend, a 22-year-old union carpenter named Miguel Flores.

Ambi: Steps to basement.

Flores owned a house with his sister Nancy.

FLORES: This is his room.

The young man slept in the basement. In the corner, the family has set up a shrine around his ashes.

FLORES: We feel like he’s still here. Every night we come down here and we say goodnight. The kids hug or give the little urn box a kiss. We feel like we have a little piece of him with us.

Ever since her brother’s death, Flores has been trying to find out exactly what took place. When she arrived at the hospital, she says a Chicago police officer questioned her. Something, she says, didn’t seem right.

FLORES: They just told us it was an accident and, at that point, I was like, ‘I can’t believe that my brother just passed away and nobody can explain to me what happened.’

Flores went to the district station, but says the accident’s investigator wouldn’t tell her much either. She says she didn’t find out the other driver was a cop until TV reporters told her.

Flores eventually learned the police didn’t administer a Breathalyzer test on Officer Ardelean until more than seven hours after the crash. The test detected alcohol, but not more than the legal limit for driving. Based on other evidence, the police cited Ardelean for misdemeanor D-U-I and failure to slow down.

MALHAM: …because I want to ask around…

David Malham is chatting on the phone with a prosecutor. Malham is a victims’ advocate with Mothers Against Drunk Driving. This conversation is about another fatal crash involving an allegedly intoxicated Chicago police officer. Malham says it’s bad enough that some cops drive drunk.

MALHAM: What’s unsettling is the collusion in some of these cases after the fact — where other police officers who are to protect law-abiding citizens are, in this instance, doing the reverse. They are protecting the law breakers.

DONAHUE: There’s nothing farther from the truth as far as taking care of their buddies and fellow police officers.

Mark Donahue heads the Fraternal Order of Police lodge that represents Chicago cops.

DONAHUE: Because of the scrutiny that officers come under today, that is more than not likely to happen.

The police department hasn’t responded to our questions or request for records about Ardelean’s case. A spokesperson says that’s because the officer and his supervisors are still under investigation.

That probe didn’t stop a Cook County judge last month from rescinding the suspension of Ardelean’s driver’s license.

FLORES: We were never invited to that hearing. We never knew anything about that hearing ever even happening.

That’s Nancy Flores again.

FLORES: As much as I’ve called the State’s Attorney’s office and as many e-mails as I’ve sent, they would have known that we wanted to be present at that hearing because we’ve attended everything else.

A State’s Attorney’s spokesman declined to speak on tape but insists the office didn’t know the families would have wanted to attend. And he says Illinois constitutional protections for victims don’t apply to traffic court.

The family did get to attend one court session last month It was a preliminary hearing after prosecutors upgraded the DUI charge to two felony counts. At that hearing, the prosecutors said Ardelean had been passing cars at about 60 miles per hour.

The officer’s attorney, Thomas Needham, counters that the other driver disregarded a stop sign.

NEEDHAM: So the cause of the accident was the driver of the other vehicle, not my client.

What about this swerving over the center line?

NEEDHAM: There was a civilian witness who stated that my client crossed in the wrong lane to get around him. The same witness insisted several times during the hearing that my client’s vehicle was a black SUV when it was a silver SUV. I think he was just thinking of a different vehicle or his memory was totally flawed.

An Illinois State Police expert estimated from the Breathalyzer result that Ardelean’s blood alcohol level during the crash exceeded the limit.

But the judge voiced doubt about that estimate and threw out the charges. He pointed to testimony from a bartender of the tavern. The bartender said Ardelean was buying drinks for other people and didn’t seem drunk.

Daniel O’Connor, the families’ attorney, says the prosecutors should have challenged this witness.

O’CONNOR: He served him beer. He admitted to drinking a shot of tequila with him, so clearly these guys are somewhat friendly. And then he testified that he gave him several shot glasses of water, which, you know, I’m not expert on bars but I haven’t seen too many shot glasses of water being poured.

After the hearing, Latino lawmakers and community leaders rallied behind the families. Retired Cook County Judge Raymond Figueroa blasted prosecutors for bringing the case to a preliminary hearing instead of a grand jury.

FIGUEROA: The grand jury, 99.9 percent of the time, is going to come back with a finding of probable cause to take to trial. They didn’t want the grand jury to have that. They’d rather have it in front of a judge. This is the State’s Attorney, who’s supposed to be representing the people.

In a written response, the State’s Attorney’s office said its strategy reflected the difficulty prosecutors would have had at trial.

Three weeks ago, the office reopened its investigation. But Nancy Flores hasn’t received word since then on whether the prosecutors will bring Officer Ardelean back to court.

FLORES: It’s hard enough to lose somebody that is very important in our family and then, on top of that, have to deal with all this. So my biggest fear is that they’ll come back and tell me that they can’t do anything about it.

Advocates for the families of the young men who died in the crash are circulating petitions for new criminal charges and a grand jury.