'It Appears To Be Suicide By A Cop': Source

JOLIET, IL — More than a week after a 19-year-old Naperville man was fatally shot by Joliet police on Second Avenue, Joliet Patch has learned more details of the shooting. Multiple sources have told Patch that Joliet Police Officer Tyler Bayles shot and killed Joe Casten.

Casten "has battled immense mental health challenges over the last three years. Sadly, Joe lost his battle on Tuesday, December 22, 2020," according to his obituary.

Bayles has been on the Joliet Police Department the past three years. In November 2017, the Joliet Police and Fire Board passed a motion to hire Bayles at the Joliet Police Department.

Bayles had just started his patrol shift around 6 p.m. on Dec. 22, and he was the first officer on the scene at Second Avenue around 6:30 p.m., sources said.

The Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force announced last week that Casten had called 911 claiming someone was in the street threatening to shoot people. At the time of the 911 call, Joliet police did not know Casten was the caller.

When the third-year Joliet officer rolled up to the scene, between Rowell Avenue and Arizona Avenue, the street was dark, and Bayles encountered the Naperville teenager holding a black gun, and Casten was threatening to shoot police, the task force said last week.

The task force eventually revealed that Joliet police recovered a black BB gun from the scene of the deadly shooting.

Last week's news releases, issued by the Joliet Police Department administration of Chief Al Roechner as well as Romeoville Police Chief Ken Kroll, the public information spokesman for the task force, did not disclose any information about the officer who killed Casten.

Roechner, the chief of police since August 2018, showed up at the scene 90 minutes after Bayles shot the Naperville teenager.

Last week's news releases by Kroll and the Joliet police administration gave the false impression that three unidentified Joliet police officers fired their guns at Casten, even though this was not the case. Chicago TV news outlets were telling viewers that multiple Joliet police officers were involved in the shooting, when that was not the case, Patch's sources said.

The only person firing a gun on Second Avenue was Bayles, and he fired more than a dozen rounds from his Glock handgun, striking Casten multiple times, sources said. However, most of his gunshots did not strike Casten, and some of the officer's bullets went into at least one house.

At least one of Officer Bayles' gunshots struck a Joliet police car, believed to be his squad car, sources told Patch.

The other two unidentified Joliet police officers who arrived at the scene did not fire their guns, sources said. They were the ones who tried to perform CPR on the shooting victim, who was later pronounced dead at Silver Cross Hospital, the sources said.

"Mr. Casten was reported to police to be threatening to shoot people. Upon arrival, three uniformed JPD Officers in marked squad cars encountered Mr. Casten in the street brandishing what appeared to be a black semi-automatic handgun," Will County Major Crimes Task Force members announced Dec. 23. "Mr. Casten aimed this apparent handgun at officers and was subsequently shot multiple times. Officers on the scene quickly attempted to render life saving measures."

On Wednesday, Joliet Patch reached out to Kroll, the Romeoville chief, for additional comment related to the third year Joliet officer's deadly shooting from more than a week ago.

The Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force and Joliet Police Department announced last week that they would not be holding any news conferences to explain the details of the Second Avenue shooting.

On Wednesday, Joliet Patch asked Kroll for comment on the following three questions:

• At this point in time, can you tell me Officer Tyler Bayles' status with the Joliet police force?
• Is he on administrative leave? Is he back to regular patrol duties?
• Has the Major Crimes Task Force interviewed him and if so, who did those interviews?

"The Task Force investigates the criminal incident," Kroll responded to Joliet Patch on Wednesday afternoon. "We do not get involved with administrative internal inquires. Administrative matters are conducted by the originating agency; in this case the Joliet PD. Thus, I don’t have any insight into what the Officer(s) duty status is with the Joliet Police, nor do I have any information on their personal backgrounds.

"Our investigation is ongoing, including interviews with the officers involved."

The Dec. 22 shooting marked the first time in 2020 that Joliet police fatally shot somebody. The last Joliet officer who fatally shot someone was Officer Ryan Killian, who shot Nakia Smith on May 27, 2019 at the Liberty Meadows Joliet Housing Authority development off Briggs Street.

In that case, Will County State's Attorney James Glasgow found Killian justified "in the shooting of this madman." In February 2019, Detective Aaron Bandy fatally shot First Midwest Bank robber Bruce Carter inside Carter's house on Des Plaines Street, just two blocks from the police station.

In the Carter shooting, Glasgow announced that Bandy was justified to shoot Carter, who was armed with a knife running at the detective inside the two-story house on Joliet's southeast side.

On Wednesday, Joliet Patch emailed the Joliet police administration seeking answers to Officer Bayles' current job status, whether he has returned to regular duty or whether he is on paid leave. Roechner's public information officer, Sgt. Dwayne English, replied back Thursday morning in an email stating "The officer remains on administrative leave per policy."

It is standard protocol for police departments to put an officer on paid administrative leave when they use deadly force, but it varies by department and case to case, on the length of the paid leave before the officer returns to regular duty. Typically, in officer involved shootings, the officer is required to undergo a mental health fitness evaluation before returning to regular duty.

"It appears to me to be a suicide by a cop (situation)," a source told Joliet Patch Wednesday.

The source told Joliet Patch that Officer Bayles was definitely justified to fatally shoot the Naperville 19-year-old.

"It's sad, but he (Bayles) was justified," the source said.

This week, Joliet Patch also filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information related to Bayles' employment history with the Joliet Police Department.

The city of Joliet is still processing that public records request.

If you're wondering whether the Joliet Police Department has released any officer body camera footage from the Second Avenue deadly shooting, that's impossible.

The Joliet Police Department remains one of the largest police departments in the Midwest that continues to resist efforts to require officers to be equipped with body cameras.

Chief Roechner has resisted body cameras as has his nemesis, Joliet Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council President Mike Devito.

Mayor Bob O'Dekirk, a former Joliet police officer who patrolled the city streets during the 1990s, also has not made police body cameras a priority during his tenure as mayor.

This month, the Joliet City Council approved the city's 2021 operating budget but allocated no money for body cameras. Instead, the Council approved spending several thousand dollars to purchase new Tasers to replace the existing ones.

Wednesday marked the funeral service for the Naperville teenager. The wake was held at the Beidelman-Kunsch Funeral Homes & Crematory.

To read the complete obituary for Joe Casten, go here.