In November 2007, off-duty Chicago police Officer John Ardelean went drinking at a River North bar. He later slammed his Dodge Durango into a Pontiac Grand Am at Damen and Oakdale avenues, killing Miguel Flores, 22, and Erick Lagunas, 21.

Prosecutors say Ardelean drank three beers and four shots in little more than two hours. Several other shots were poured, but the bartender said they were shots of water. One video showed a woman tossing a drink down Ardelean's throat.

Miraculously, however, four police officers at the scene of the crash said they didn't smell any alcohol or notice any other signs that Ardelean might be drunk. So they didn't ask him to take a breath test to determine the alcohol level in his blood.

Almost eight hours later, a police supervisor overturned that decision. The breath test showed Ardelean's blood-alcohol level within the legal threshold.

Ardelean was eventually charged with aggravated DUI and reckless homicide. But that near-eight-hour gap has loomed large in this case. On Tuesday, Cook County Circuit Judge Thomas Gainer Jr. ruled that the officer had been arrested and detained without probable cause.

That may be the end of the prosecution. But it's not the end of the questions about this case, and others like it.

Remember Joseph Frugoli, a Chicago cop whose blood alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit when he slammed his SUV into a disabled vehicle on the Dan Ryan Expressway last year, killing two young men? Frugoli had a long history of car crashes, but was still driving because of a miraculously benign police and judicial system.

What about Richard Bolling, another Chicago officer accused of striking and killing a 13-year-old boy last year and then speeding away in his Dodge Charger? Police found him five blocks away, driving the wrong way down a one-way street. He smelled of alcohol and had an open beer bottle. By the time his supervisors compelled him to take a Breathalyzer, his blood alcohol level registered 0.079, just under the legal limit of 0.08.

Chicago police Superintendent Jody Weis said there wasn't any preferential treatment accorded Frugoli or Bolling. He promised to investigate.

Add Ardelean to that list.

Weis has four cops who confronted Ardelean after he'd been drinking at a bar and miraculously didn't detect any alcohol or notice anything else. He needs to call them in, one by one, and decide for himself what really happened. And then he needs to make his findings public.

Right now, motorists involved in serious accidents are compelled to take a breath test — if the cops ask. How about a state law that mandates such tests — without exception — in all serious injury crashes? That would help dispel the impression that police officers neatly dispose of cases of reckless conduct by police officers.

On Wednesday, Weis reacted to the Ardelean ruling. "I mean, courts rule," he said. "I may not agree with it, but it really doesn't matter what I think about it."

Yes, it does matter what you think, Superintendent Weis. More than that, it matters what you do. The issue isn't so much what happened in court. The issue is what happened on the street at Damen and Oakdale.

If a cop gets a pass for reckless behavior, the rest of us — the people that police are sworn to protect — are put at risk.

The questions will only grow louder until the answers are convincing.

No more miracles.