​Off-Duty Joliet Cop Arrested On Domestic Battery Charge

JOLIET, IL — A Joliet police officer has been placed on administrative leave after being arrested Friday on a domestic battery charge.

Officers were sent to a home in the 1300 block of Fitzer Drive for a welfare check, Joliet police said in a news release. While there, authorities arrested off-duty officer Andrew McCue on a charge of domestic battery.

A Will County warrant for his arrest was signed, and McCue was released on cash bond. Court records show McCue posted 10 percent of a $20,000 bail amount. He is set to reappear in court on April 15.

Police are investigating the case.

Citing court records, The Herald News reports the victim in the domestic battery case filed for a protective order against McCue in February 2021 but was denied because the “petitioner did not sustain their burden of proof.”

McCue is among the Joliet police officers being sued by the family of Eric Lurry, who died while in Joliet police custody on Jan. 29, 2020.

A lawsuit filed by Lurry family lawyers claims "Defendant McCue then reached in Mr. Lurry's mouth to retrieve the narcotics and removed part of a plastic bag," court documents show. "Defendant McCue and May's conduct caused Mr. Lurry to ingest narcotics and suffocate."

In July 2020, Will County Coroner Patrick O'Neil and Will County State's Attorney's James Glasgow issued statements exonerating the Joliet police officers of criminal wrongdoing in Lurry's death. Glasgow and O'Neil indicated that Lurry died of a drug overdose involving Fentanyl, heroin and cocaine.

Glasgow's news release, however, was not as strongly worded as the one put out by O'Neil, officials told Patch at the time.

"Eric Lurry's death was caused by the ingestion of fatal amounts of heroin, Fentanyl and cocaine and did not result directly from any action or inaction by an officer of the Joliet Police Department," Glasgow wrote the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force on July 2.

Patch editor John Ferak contributed to this report.