JOLIET, IL — At a news conference held only for local outlets Wednesday morning, Joliet Police Deputy Chief Darrell Gavin announced that officers involved in the late January arrest and death of 37-year-old Eric Lurry will not be facing criminal charges for their actions from the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force.
However, the Will County State’s Attorney still has not released its findings for its role in the investigation.
Officers could be charged criminally by the state’s attorney and could be disciplined for breaking Joliet Police Department policy and procedures when the Joliet Police Department internal investigation concludes. The internal investigation usually does not begin before the findings of the state’s attorney, however in the Lurry case, Joliet Police Chief Al Roecher said the internal investigation began last Friday.
Since Joliet City Council viewed a videotape of the arrest of Eric Lurry on June 23, the Joliet Police Department has showed the video twice – once to a group of community leaders led and contacted by Councilwoman Bettye Gavin and once at a news conference Wednesday morning.
In the Lurry case, which included review of the video, the Will-Grundy County Major Crimes Task Force found no criminal negligence by any of the Joliet officers, Gavin said. He said the task force is finished with its portion of investigation and has turned over its findings to the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office.
The video was shown to local reporters at Wednesday’s news conference, however, copies of the video were not provided to reporters because the police administration said the case remains under investigation.
Roechner said in the press conference that the Joliet Police Department is waiting for the report to come back from the state’s attorney’s office.
Although it was turned over to the state’s attorney’s office, the police department will not see the report until both the Major Crimes Task Force and state’s attorney have concluded their investigation.
Lurry, 37, died Jan. 29. Because a death was involved, Roechner said the case was turned over to the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force. The task force, which includes representatives from various local police departments, decide whether criminal charges need to be filed against any police officers in the case.
The procedure is as follows:
- The case is turned over to the major crimes task force
- Those findings are then turned over to the Will County State’s Attorney’s Office
- The Will County State’s Attorney then turns over their findings to the Joliet Police Department
- The Joliet Police Department then opens its own internal investigation. Unlike the purpose of the Major Crimes Task Force or the State’s Attorney, the Joliet Police Department investigation is to find if the Joliet Police Department policies and procedures have been violated.
- Once that investigation is complete, the findings of it are turned over to the Joliet Police chief who determines the consequences if there has been a breach of policies or procedures.
“I could have nothing to do with the internal investigation either (because) I am the final person to make a decision,” Roechner said.
In an ordinary investigation, police dash cam footage would have been turned over to the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force and not viewed by either the Joliet Police chief or the city manager. This is because they are part of the decision-making body at the end of the investigation. However, the Lurry case is different because a whistleblower from the Joliet Police Department leaked the video to other city officials outside the agency.
“It took somebody within the police department to blow the whistle to get this (video) to the city manager,” Mayor Bob O’Dekirk said in a phone interview after the press conference.
Joliet City Council members viewed the video at a special meeting in closed session on June 23. Three council members and the mayor then signed a letter requesting that Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul conduct an independent investigation.
The video shown to the press Tuesday begins at 4 p.m., Jan. 28, 2020. It shows the empty backseat of a Joliet police car. There is video running, but the sound is not initiated until Lurry is in the car.
“Mr. Lurry was only in custody for obstructing justice,” Gavin said at the news conference. “When they were trying to take Lurry into custody, a struggle ensued.”
The Jan. 28 arrest was part of an undercover drug operation and police would not give details about the larger case. Lurry was the passenger in one of the vehicles that had been pulled over as part of the investigation, police said.
In the early moments of the video when the audio begins, an unidentified woman is heard saying, “I just want to know what’s going on.”
Someone can be heard in the police video of saying, “We’re taking him to jail because I’m sure he has something on him.”
Gavin told reporters the law does not allow officers to search a person’s mouth.
“The mouth is considered a cavity,” he said. “We cannot do a cavity search without a warrant.”
The police car begins moving at 4:07 p.m. and stops moving again at 4:15 p.m. In the time when the car is moving, Lurry is seen chewing on something. He often turns his head away from the camera and seems to push his face into the seat. When the police car arrives and officers go to move Lurry from the car, he does not comply with their command to swing his legs out.
“He’s not able to move his legs to get out of the car,” Gavin said of the video.
Another officer enters the car from the other side, slaps Lurry in the face and says, “Wake up, bitch.”
That officer, then places his hand under Lurry’s chin and pinches Lurry’s nose shut.
Gavin said the officer’s hand that is under Lurry’s chin is checking for a pulse and that they are pinching Lurry’s nose shut so that he opens his mouth.
Gavin said that while a cavity search would require a warrant, at this point in the arrest, there is a medical emergency taking place.
“A medical emergency protocol supercedes that,” he said.
Once Lurry’s mouth is open, an officer inserts a foldable baton into his mouth to keep it open and is seen removing multiple plastic bags from his mouth. The officer who arrested Lurry is wearing gloves. The one who enters the car after 4:15 p.m. is not.
Gavin said the officer is careful not to touch the bags with his hand because if there are drugs in the bags, and they are laced with fentanyl, the officer could become ill by just touching the substance.
“Enough that would fit on a pinhead would kill a human,” Gavin said.
According to Drugs.com, a very small amount is fatal.
“Just 2 to 3 milligrams of this drug can kill a person,” the website states. It blocks opioid receptors and its most dangerous side effect — like other opioids — is respiratory depression, which can quickly lead to coma and death.”
Gavin told reporters that Lurry died from fentanyl-induced intoxication.
He said Lurry had 11 times the amount of fentanyl in his system that would prove fatal.
Patch requested the Will County Coroner’s reports two weeks ago via Freedom of Information Act but has yet to receive a response.
Gavin said that even if the officers realized that Lurry was having a drug overdose, that nothing could have been done to save him because of the high concentration of fentanyl in his body.
According to drugabuse.gov, Naloxone can be effective in reversing an overdose of fentanyl, but only if given right away.
While the Major Crimes Task Force found that no criminal charges should be filed, according to Gavin, there are policies and procedures of the Joliet Police Department that may have been violated during Lurry’s arrest.
“We’re not going to excuse the cuss word because that is what we will deal with in the internal process,” he said. “It’s a policy violation, we don’t train our officers to cuss at people.”
Gavin said the slap seen when the second officer enters the car could have been a stunner, which is taught to police in use of force training. In this instance, Gavin said, it might have been used to wake the suspect back up.
“I don’t want to speak for (the officer), Gavin said. “He might say something completely different.
“In that situation, a stunner would be allowed. The problem with drug overdoses is if they fall asleep, they could stop breathing.”
O’Dekirk believes there are violations of policy in the video as well, although he would not be specific.
“As a former police officer, there’s things I think look bad that can be explained,” he said. “I also think there are things that cannot.”
Joliet Police said there are three authorized copies of the video. One is with the Joliet Police Department, one is with the Will County State’s Attorney and that is the same one that was with the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force and one is with the City of Joliet.
O’Dekirk believes that the legal department of the city should have known about this video and any video that is available from the police department.
“They should have a copy of every video, even the cameras that show nothing,” he said. “It is inconceivable that the legal department not have this immediately.”
On Wednesday night, a statement was issued by Bishop Steven Evans, Leap of Faith Ministries; Pastor Warren Dorris, Prayer Tower Ministries Church of God in Christ; and Rev. Herbert Brooks, Jr., Will County Board member, in response to the Eric Lurry arrest video.
Part of the statement read: “The mayor’s yet another attack on the Joliet police concerning the arrest of Eric Lurry is unfounded. We have seen the entire video — not just O’Dekirk’s edited version — and we know the truth, which includes the police performing CPR, likely saving the man’s life, and the man dying at the hospital many hours later, and not in the police vehicle as the mayor has claimed.”
The statement from Dorris, Brooks and Evans indicated that “in addition to again calling for O’Dekirk’s resignation, we call on the remaining board members, who themselves been victims of O’Dekirk’s bullying, to call for a no confidence vote of the mayor.”