Roechner Out As Joliet Police Chief, Better Days Ahead For JPD?

JOLIET, IL — Al Roechner's time as Joliet's police chief has come to an end. On Friday night, Mayor Bob O'Dekirk said that Friday was Roechner's last day at the police station. Even though Roechner's two-sentence retirement letter states that Jan. 21 will be his last day, O'Dekirk said that Roechner will use these next two weeks to burn down his vacation time.

O'Dekirk said that Roechner's departure from the police department was not a total surprise.

"The city manager (Jim Hock) told me (Thursday) night that this was going to happen," O'Dekirk said Friday night.

Come Monday, Jim Capparelli takes over as Joliet's permanent city manager and Roechner will not be in the police station running operations, the mayor said. O'Dekirk said the decision to appoint a new chief will be made by Capparelli, not him.

"I think we have an outstanding police department. Whoever is picked next will do an outstanding job," O'Dekirk said.

Roechner has been the chief of police since August 2018 when Chief Brian Benton announced he was stepping down. At that time, after several months of controversy and problems of low morale in the department, Benton said he would retire that November when he turned 50.

On Friday afternoon, Roechner submitted a two-sentence-long retirement letter to Joliet's human resources director Kathy Franson. His letter states that his final day on the city's payroll is Jan. 21.

The city, nor the Joliet Police Department, issued a news release on Friday regarding Roechner's departure.

Joliet Patch left a message Friday night seeking comment from Roechner about his retirement announcement.

During the past year, Roechner has returned only one phone call message from Joliet Patch's editor.

Meanwhile, Friday marked Jim Hock's final day on the job as interim city manager, a post he held since August.

Hock told Patch he had been talking with Roechner "for a few days" about Roechner's retirement.

Hock told Patch he did not force Roechner to retire.

"He approached me and he decided now is the time," Hock told Patch on Friday night at City Hall.

'The Joliet City Council and O'Dekirk appointed Roechner as the permanent chief in December 2018 after then-city manager David Hales named Roechner as interim chief late that summer.

Joliet did not conduct any regional or national hiring search for the chief's position in the third largest city in Illinois.

As chief, Roechner has had multiple clashes with members of his police department and he also maintained that violent crime reached historic lows for Joliet.

Last February, Roechner gave a presentation to the Joliet City Council suggesting that the city's violent crime rate was down to 45-year record lows.

"This is an all-time low," Roechner announced. "The stats I have go back to 1975, and this is the lowest burglaries have ever been since that time frame."

Meanwhile, some of Roechner's efforts to punish members of his police department were overturned in recent months.

On Oct. 27, Joliet Patch reported that Detective Joe Clement's appeal of his 200-work hour suspension from Roechner was rescinded from his personnel file by Hock. Clement was reimbursed $10,266 for the 25 days of lost wages from earlier this year.

"When you have a police chief who is more interested in settling scores and covering up his actions than maintaining public safety, it's time for a drastic change," Clement told Joliet Patch in October.

Clement, who retired in August, is now running for Joliet City Council in the April 6 race.

Also in October, Roechner orchestrated the arrest of Joliet Police Sgt. Javier "Butch" Esqueda on multiple counts of official misconduct related to the in-custody death of Eric Lurry, a Black Joliet resident who swallowed a bag of drugs while in the backseat of a Joliet squad car.

Over the summer, Esqueda was the whistleblower who notified a Chicago television station that he suspected fellow Joliet police officers appeared to be involved in corruption and evidence tampering in regard to the squad car's camera and audio system involving Lurry's death.

The Joliet Police Department's Black Officers Association came out in strong support of Esqueda's actions back in July. "They should never be able to tarnish his badge," Joliet Detective Dave Jackson said at the time. "You see something, you say something, look what happened in Minneapolis with George Floyd when officers sat back and watched that other officer with his knee on George Floyd's neck and failed to intervene."

One year ago this week, a certified letter from the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council informed then-acting Joliet City Manager Steve Jones that Joliet's patrol officers' union was fed up with Roechner and his internal affairs practices.

The letter was written by Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council General Counsel Tamara Cummings and Joliet Police FOP Lodge President Mike DeVito "to express concerns we have with the current disciplinary process."

Their letter listed several instances where Joliet's FOP has perceived Roechner to be unfair or not objective concerning matters of officer discipline. Time and time again, Roechner continues to cause unnecessary delays regarding pending internal affairs cases for rank-and-file Joliet police officers, the authors say.

In September, Joliet Patch produced an exclusive story revealing that the Joliet Police Department remains entangled in at least a dozen ongoing federal lawsuits and the ongoing legal expenses to defend the city in those pending lawsuits has reached at least $770,000.

Of the 12 pending Joliet Police federal lawsuits, four were filed by members of the police department. On Friday morning, Joliet Patch reported that Roechner and the city are now the subject of a new federal civil rights lawsuit filed by former Harvey and Cicero police officer Anthony Sinnott, who alleges that Roechner refused to hire him in 2019 because he is Black.

In November, Joliet Patch reported that David Blackmore and Bill Busse, the two veteran police officers notified many months ago that Joliet Police Chief Al Roechner was terminating their employment, remain on the city's regular payroll and have made a combined $178,015 since being relieved of their police duties.

As of Jan. 8, 2021, Roechner has yet to present any evidence to the city's police and fire board to justify why their firings were warranted.

What are your thoughts on Roechner's performance as the Joliet chief of police? Post your comments at the bottom of this article or on the Joliet Patch Facebook page.