Samantha Harer Case: Nearly All Gun Suicides Are Men: Ferak

CHANNAHON, IL — These days in Will County, a dark storm cloud hovers over Channahon. A growing number of people are starting to question whether that police department's leaders were involved in a coverup to protect the reputation of a fellow Will County police department concerning the Feb. 13, 2018 death of Samantha Harer.

At the time of Harer's gunshot death, she was completely nude in her bedroom, and she died during an argument with off-duty Crest Hill Police Officer Phil Flores, who had been an uninvited guest to her Channahon apartment the previous day, court documents reflect.

Channahon's response to the situation was to summon the multi-agency Will-Grundy County Major Crimes Task Force, but this was nothing more than a smoke and mirrors job, a way to dupe the public and the press into believing that a coalition of two dozen police departments from across county lines were working hard, hand in hand, day by day, all on the same page.

Channahon, documents show, was always running the show.

"Although a number of different law enforcement agencies responded to the scene and participated in the investigation, the defendant Town of Channahon directed and led the investigation and conducted the bulk of the investigatory work on the case,"the plaintiffs' lawyer Jennifer Bonjean of Brooklyn, N.Y., has informed the federal judge in Chicago.

Bonjean is representing the parents of Samantha Harer in their federal civil rights case against Channahon, Crest Hill and Flores, who was never allowed to return to active duty since the day of his girlfriend's death. He submitted his resignation this March, rather than face being fired.

Although the police departments from the city of Joliet, Bolingbrook and Romeoville had numerous highly experienced and well-seasoned homicide detectives summoned to the Bridge Street apartment complex in Channahon that cold winter morning of Feb. 13, 2018, those three agencies were basically kicked out of the investigation within about a week or so.

Their expertise, their skill set, their institutional knowledge, their impartiality, would not be necessary, as far as the leaders at Channahon were concerned.

In my review of the Samantha Harer case, one of the most peculiar items I noticed concerned the limited role of Joliet Police homicide detective Tizoc Landeros.

He was activated as part of the Will-Grundy County Major Crimes Task Force on the day of Harer's death. He has a reputation around Joliet as being one of his agency's superior homicide detectives.

And yet when he got to Channahon, he was basically treated like a dirty diaper.

The written reports in the case file are evident that Landeros was not assigned any meaningful tasks, and he was not asked to do any noteworthy follow-up investigations.

Who was responsible for treating Landeros as a third-rate detective, when he was probably the best detective on the scene that day and he should have been utilized in the days ahead rather than sent back to downtown Joliet?

As it turned out, Channahon's chief, Shane Casey, and deputy chief, Adam Bogart, chose to put one of their own, Andrew McClellan, a two-year detective, in charge of everything.

Channahon chose to appoint one of their most inexperienced detectives, McClellan, to oversee the case that involved suspicions of a staged death scene, similar to the May 2004 death of Bolingbrook's Kathleen Savio, whose death was initially treated as a bathtub accident.

"Upon information and belief," attorney Bonjean argues, "physical evidence at the scene was not properly or adequately preserved, tested and analyzed by the Channahon police department. Defendant Town of Channahon conducted a sub-par investigation implicitly designed to protect potential misconduct of a fellow police officer …"

Harer, it just so happens, had been a college intern at Channahon's Police Department while she was finishing her 2016 bachelor's at the University of St. Francis in Joliet. Afterward, she took a full-time job in Plainfield as an emergency dispatcher with WESCOM.

It's likely those three men: Casey, Bogart and McClellan will become household names in Will County in the coming months as the federal civil rights lawsuit against Channahon heats up.

After all, McClellan was an unseasoned detective, and he worked for a village that had handled few, if any, suspicious death cases involving a gun, during his time on the police force.

The total number of homicides in the village of Channahon during the previous five years is zero.

The total number of violent deaths that were classified as gunshot suicides in Channahon during the previous five years is one.

Last week, I showed up at the Channahon Police Department and asked to speak with Detective McClellan. I wanted to ask him, face to face, about his role in the Harer case.

However, Deputy Chief Bogart later came out into the police department lobby and indicated McClellan would not be doing interviews about the case, given that the case is tied up in litigation.

McClellan's written reports from the case make it clear is that he chose to investigate Harer's death from the outset as a suicide.

But why?

Was he given orders, direct or implicit? Or was there a real or perceived threat of blackmail?

Were some of the police officers fearful that Flores, who had six years experience working the 6 p.m to 6 a.m. shift for Crest Hill, would expose something damaging about one of them or their agency?

In 2016, Flores had been accused of sexually assaulting a 30-year-old Crest Hill woman as she slept in the nude in her bedroom at her house. No criminal charges resulted in that incident.

And then, on the morning of Feb. 13, 2018, Harer, his estranged girlfriend, was found in the nude, inside her apartment, with a gunshot wound to the head, and Flores was there the entire time.

He claimed that she had locked herself in her bedroom that Tuesday morning and that he was unable to bust up her door as he heard her trigger her gun and fire.

Year after year, here in Will County, the overwhelming percentage of gunshot suicides are committed by men, not women.

And yet the Channahon Police Department, after clearing several members of the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force out of the way, chose to investigate Harer's death as a suicide.

In doing so, Channahon chose to overlook any important evidence that pointed toward homicide, by one of their own, a fellow local cop.

Forensic testing revealed that Flores' sweatshirt contained blood spatter and the Illinois State Police determined that he tested positive for gunshot residue while Harer tested negative.

"This failure to investigate and properly manage the scene is a clear disregard for public safety and an example of the cover-ups and protections provided to officers," argues attorney Jennifer Bonjean, the Harers' lawyer. "Incredibly, a Channahon police officer concluded less than an hour after the shooting that the death scene was consistent with suicide. He made that determination without speaking to any witnesses, including defendant Flores."

Using the Freedom of Information Act, I obtained five years of statistical data, 2013 through 2017, from the Will County Coroner's Office.

In the five years prior to Harer's suspicious death inside of her small apartment, 92 percent of all gunshot suicides across Will County were done by males, not females.

There were a total of 114 gunshot suicides in Will County between 2013 and 2017, of which 105 were done by males.

That means there were only nine total gunshot suicides in Will County between 2013-2017, an average of less than two female gunshot deaths per year.

The statistical breakdown is as follows:

• In 2017, there were 25 gunshot suicides across Will County; 21 were men, only four were women.
• In 2016, there were 39 gunshot suicides in Will County; 37 were men, only two were women.
• In 2015, there were 14 gunshot suicides in Will County; 13 were men, only one was a woman.
• In 2014, there were nine gunshot suicides in Will County; all nine were men.
• In 2013, there were 27 gunshot suicides in Will County; 25 were men, only two were women.

Of the nine total female suicides in Will County over the five-year period, 2013 through 2017, the breakdown of those deaths is as follows:

Aug. 28, 2017, 41-year -old Joliet woman, gunshot wound of the head. This was the horrific case in the 400 block of Reed Street involving Celisa Kay Henning who turned the gun on herself after murdering her twin daughters Makayla and Addison.

June 17, 2017, 29-year-old Romeoville woman, gunshot wound of the head.

June 1, 2017, 48-year-old Joliet woman, gunshot wound of the head.

November 26, 2016, 17-year-old Joliet girl, gunshot wound of the head.

October 11, 2016, 46-year-old Crest Hill woman, gunshot wound of the head.

January 17, 2016, 33-year-old Bolingbrook woman, gunshot wound of the head.

February 20, 2015, 35-year-old Romeoville woman, gunshot wound of the head.

April 6, 2013, 41-year-old New Lenox woman, gunshot wound of the mouth.

January 28, 2013, 57-year-old Bolingbrook woman, gunshot wound of the head.

And yet when 23-year-old Samantha Harer died, McClellan's immediate reaction was to treat her death as a suicide and give her local cop boyfriend the complete benefit of the doubt.

In the immediate aftermath of Harer's death, Channahon Police signified in preliminary reports that Flores was negative when tested for gunshot residue.

But that was not true.

"Gunshot residue tests revealed that Flores was positive for gunshot residue to his right hand, the cuffs of his sweatshirt, and the front of his sweatshirt," the plaintiff's lawyer noted in her federal lawsuit. "Gunshot reside analysis showed that Samantha’s hands were negative for gunshot.

"On information and belief, a Channahon police officer purposefully altered, rigged, or misrepresented the results of a preliminary gunshot residue test conducted on Flores to support their premature theory that Samantha Harer committed suicide."

Nowadays, the Channahon Police Department's reputation has been tarnished.

Meanwhile, lingering questions remain, such as whether Channahon has a crooked cop on the force or whether Channahon has a corrupt police administration?

The Samantha Harer federal lawsuit in Chicago aims to find out the truth.

Summer's here, and things are heating up in the federal court case, that's for sure.

This can only mean one thing: lots of billable hours, all on the taxpayer's dime, for Channahon's municipal law firm, Mahoney, Silverman & Cross, out of Joliet.

A Joliet native and former investigative reporter and editor with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, John Ferak is Patch Editor for Joliet and Patch coverage for Shorewood and Channahon-Minooka.