Three weeks into the investigation of fallen Fox Lake police lieutenant Joseph Gliniewicz, the two warring sides finally met today in the same room.
“It was totally friendly,” said Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd, who met with investigators for the first time today since task force chief George Filenko branded him as “unprofessional” for speaking to the media about Gliniewicz’s cause of death 12 days ago.
While it’s no secret that Rudd and Filenko have been at odds in the past, the enmity between them hardly explains the virtual news blackout on a case which prompted a furious police manhunt when Gliniewicz was shot Sept 1. After flooding western Lake County with over 400 officers, as well as helicopters and canines, the trail now appears to have gone cold, and police have not taken reporters’ questions since Sept. 9.
The task force is not the only agency maintaining a cloak of silence. Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran, who is engaged in a bitter campaign to unseat incumbent state’s attorney Mike Nerheim also isn’t speaking about the case. Neither is Nerheim. Fox Lake mayor Donny Schmitt is also silent, about the Gliniewicz case, and a seemingly coincidental internal probe of his police department, which forced the recent resignation of police chief Michael Behan.
But task force spokesman Chris Covelli bristled at suggestions that those external issues might be influencing the task force’s work.
“Politics has zero to do with this investigation,” he said. “Obviously, everybody wants it fast. We want it right.”
In the meantime, Covelli insisted investigators remain focused on a homicide investigation targeted at three individuals who Gliniewicz said he was pursuing, shortly before his radio went silent.
“Nothing has changed,” he said. “We are considering there to be three suspects.”
Gliniewicz’s son Donald "D.J." Gliniewicz told the Daily Herald, "my father never once had a single suicidal thought in his life."
And the internal investigation in the Fox Lake Police Department?
“We haven’t made a connection to that,” he said. But he quickly added, “It would be irresponsible of me to eliminate any possibility until the case is closed.”
