Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office will investigate the Joliet Police Department for evidence of a pattern of civil rights abuses, a move that comes more than a year after a suspect died in police custody.
Raoul on Wednesday announced the probe of the southwest suburban department will be a “pattern and practice” investigation of department policies, training, disciplinary system, uses of force and other areas, a review similar to the one conducted by the Justice Department of the Chicago Police Department after the fatal police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
Raoul said his office began a “preliminary investigation” in the summer of 2020 at the request of Joliet Mayor Bob O’Dekirk and city council members.
Raoul declined to say what that review turned up, but the AG said his investigators would not be looking into specific incidents such as the 2020 death of drug suspect Eric Lurry, who died of a fentanyl overdose after being suffocated and having a baton forced into his mouth by Joliet police officers while in the back of a police cruiser.
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