On September 8, 2021, the Office of the Illinois Attorney General formally opened a civil pattern or practice investigation into the Joliet Police Department (JPD). The investigation focused on the Department as a whole, rather than on a single incident or officer. From the beginning, JPD and the City of Joliet have cooperated and provided access to their files, data, and staff. We recognize that many JPD officers serve their community with professionalism, dedication, and courage. However, our investigation uncovered persistent problems that have continued unchecked over the years.
A catalyst of our investigation was the January 2020 death in custody of Eric Lurry, a 37-year-old Black man, who died after losing consciousness in a JPD squad car during a narcotics surveillance operation. Upon arrival at the JPD station, a JPD sergeant slapped Mr. Lurry in the face and pinched his nose shut for nearly 90 seconds while another officer inserted a baton in his mouth and removed several clear baggies. Officers pulled an unresponsive Mr. Lurry out of the squad car and began CPR. Paramedics arrived and transported Mr. Lurry to a local hospital, where he died ten hours later. In June 2020, a JPD sergeant leaked a video of the incident, prompting Joliet’s then-mayor Robert O'Dekirk and several city council members to request that our office investigate Mr. Lurry’s death and JPD’s handling of the incident.
Although our office does not have authority to investigate individual incidents, we do have the power to investigate underlying, systemic issues that affect the Department’s ability to deliver constitutional and lawful police services. After conducting a careful review of publicly available information and documents provided by JPD, we identified substantial concerns that warranted opening a full investigation.
To their credit, JPD and the City have cooperated throughout the investigation, providing access to information, participating in meetings and interviews with our office, and answering a multitude of questions. Our findings are based on our review of JPD’s policies, procedures, and training; hundreds of individual incidents; and several years of JPD’s own data. We also spoke with more than 100 current and former JPD members of all ranks, observed trainings, went on ride-alongs in each of JPD’s patrol districts, shadowed school liaison officers and civilians in JPD’s 911 Communications Center, and met with unions and members of the Black Police Officers Association. We heard from hundreds of community members, advocates, community organizations, and faith leaders through interviews, listening sessions, a virtual townhall, and other events. We also received and responded to more than 150 phone calls and emails from members of the community.
Findings
The Office of the Illinois Attorney General has reasonable cause to believe that JPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution, federal law, and state law:
- JPD uses unreasonable force, including tasers, head strikes, and other types of force, in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the U.S Constitution.
- JPD’s inadequate crisis intervention response system contributes to its pattern of unreasonable force against people with behavioral health disabilities in violation of the Fourth Amendment.
- JPD’s policing practices discriminate against Black people and raise concerns that JPD is discriminating against Latino people in violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act (IHRA) and the Illinois Civil Rights Act (ICRA).
- JPD’s response to sexual assault discriminates against women, and its response to domestic violence raises serious concerns of discrimination against women in violation of the IHRA and ICRA.
- Failures in JPD’s accountability systems have directedly contributed to these patterns of unconstitutional and unlawful policing.
We also found persistent deficiencies in JPD’s policies, training, supervision, data collection, and record-keeping practices that have contributed to these problems and enabled them to persist.
Use of Force. For years, JPD has turned a blind eye to excessive force that violates the Fourth Amendment. This pattern is not limited to any one type of force, tactic, or context. Nonetheless, several trends stand out. First, JPD trains officers that proactively using force early avoids the need for more force later. This approach has led some officers to unnecessarily escalate situations and engage in avoidable or excessive force. Second, within JPD’s larger pattern of unlawful force, we have particular concerns about JPD’s use of tasers, head strikes, other bodily force, and gun pointing. Third, JPD uses unreasonable retaliatory force and unreasonable force against teenagers. Fourth, we found almost no instances of any officer intervening to prevent unlawful force, and officer-initiated reports of concerning behavior are rare. Fifth, JPD’s supervisory and force review systems are ineffective. Supervisors tend to accept officers’ version of events at face value, despite contradictory evidence, and JPD’s force review panels function largely to justify officers’ actions. JPD’s inability to police itself sends the message from the top down that just about any level of force can be justified without consequence.
Crisis Intervention. JPD’s crisis intervention system contributes to JPD’s pattern of unlawful force against people who have a behavioral health disability. JPD has made some promising efforts to improve its crisis intervention system, including securing funding to develop and implement a program that connects people with behavioral health needs to community service providers. Still, JPD has no mechanism to ensure that its officers who have expertise in crisis intervention are dispatched to calls involving people with behavioral health disabilities. Instead, we found too many instances in which officers escalated encounters, failed to use trauma-informed tactics, and moved quickly to arrest people for minor offenses, aggravating situations and resulting in force that could have been avoided or minimized. Some JPD officers have shown skill in using crisis intervention techniques, and Department members we spoke with expressed a genuine desire to better serve people with behavioral health disabilities. We are encouraged by JPD’s recent progress in this area, but the risk of harm to vulnerable people in crisis remains.
Racial Discrimination. JPD engages in discriminatory policing against Black people in violation of the IHRA and ICRA; its policing practices also raise concerns about unlawful discrimination against Latino people. Statistical analyses reveal disproportionate enforcement actions—including traffic stops, arrests, and uses of force—against Black and, to a lesser extent, Latino community members. Tellingly, the disparities for Black people are even greater when the police enforcement activity is more discretionary. Racial disparities also exist in JPD’s gang database. Evidence suggests that these problems stem at least partly from racial bias. That evidence includes the use of racist language both in and outside the Department and an accountability system that fails to adequately address allegations of discrimination or bias. Community members feel this bias, and it has degraded the relationship between JPD and the community it serves.
Gender Discrimination. JPD’s response to gender-based crimes is discriminatory against women in violation of the IHRA and ICRA. JPD’s response to sexual assault and domestic violence is frequently impacted by officers’ negative stereotypes about women, including attitudes that discourage reporting and impede adequate investigation. Although some officers handle these cases with courtesy, there is an overall lack of professional, trauma-informed response. Moreover, JPD’s attitude towards survivors is characterized by skepticism, hostility, and a disregard for the severity of gender-based violence. These negative patterns disparately impact women, who are the predominant victims of gender-based crimes, which prevents them from receiving equal service, and disproportionately puts them at risk of further harm. Our concerns are heightened by JPD’s mishandling of accusations of gender-based violence by its own members. JPD treats accused male Department members with respect and support while treating the women who voice complaints with hostility and suspicion. These failings send a message to the Department and the community that JPD does not take investigations of domestic violence and sexual assault seriously.
Accountability. JPD’s patterns of unlawful policing are enabled by JPD’s broken accountability systems, which routinely fail to hold Department members accountable for misconduct. Each step of its accountability process has serious deficiencies that undermine the reliability and legitimacy of JPD’s oversight of officer conduct. This ineffectiveness discourages community and Department members from reporting allegations of misconduct and contributes to a department culture that tolerates or ignores serious wrongdoing.
Policies, Training, and Supervision. Across all findings and concerns in this Report, we identified deficiencies in policies, training, and supervision. We also identified substantial gaps in record keeping and data collection and analysis. For example, JPD does not systematically track gun-pointing data and is unable to determine whether its officers use this threat of deadly force in compliance with policy and law. Nor does JPD consistently collect data on pedestrian stops, the race and ethnicity of members of the public across all enforcement activities, interactions with people with behavioral health disabilities, language access needs, foot pursuits, or misconduct allegations and lawsuits. JPD cannot review and reform that which it does not measure.
OAG’s Technical Assistance Letters. Over the course of our investigation, we identified and brought to the Department’s attention a few concerns requiring immediate action that we believed JPD could address without major structural changes. We issued three technical assistance letters that identified concerns about JPD’s foot pursuit practices, language access services, and early intervention system. We are largely encouraged by JPD’s responses to these letters and commend JPD for being open to continuous improvement. As a result of these communications, JPD has implemented a robust foot pursuit policy; has made substantial progress in improving its language access resources and implemented a limited English proficiency and Deaf and Hard of Hearing policy; and has revised its early intervention system threshold for alerts and acquired new software that can enable better tracking to provide officers proactive support and intervention. However, JPD’s early intervention system still needs significant improvement to become effective.
Initial Recommendations. This Report includes some of our recommendations for change to address problems that we identified. The list of recommendations is not exhaustive and is intended as a starting point that will require Department and community input.
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Our purpose in pointing out patterns of unlawful or problematic behavior or other deficiencies is not to discredit the Department, but rather to clearly identify and describe the problems so that they can be remedied. During our investigation, we spoke with and observed Department members who were committed to policing safely and effectively in accordance with the Constitution and laws, and some members who went above and beyond to serve their community. However, JPD fails to ensure that all its members consistently adhere to policy and law, undermining the positive work of the many officers we interacted with and the efforts of Department leadership to improve JPD’s services.
Lasting reform will require meaningful, ongoing engagement with the community, City and Department leadership, Department members, unions, and other stakeholders. JPD has the human talent and dedicated personnel to do this well. Overall, we are encouraged by JPD’s and the City’s commitment to improving public safety services for all members of the Joliet community. We are grateful to the community members, Department members, and others who came forward to share information and their experiences—sometimes at substantial emotional cost. The Office of the Illinois Attorney General looks forward to collaborating with JPD, the City, and the larger Joliet community to ensure that JPD’s policing is constitutional, protects the safety of community members and officers alike, and respects the dignity of all persons with whom JPD members interact.