A wide-ranging investigation spurred on by the death of Eric Lurry in 2020 has found that Joliet police have demonstrating a pattern of “using unreasonable force.”
Lurry’s death was not the focal point of the investigation, but his death increased the scrutiny of the department’s practices, and his wife Nicole Lurry welcomed the news of the attorney general’s findings on Thursday.
“To find all of these findings, all of this aggressive force that the police has been displaying for years, and to actually see it in writing, I’m hopeful for change in our community,” she said.
Following Lurry’s death, Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul initiated an investigation into the department, and released the findings on Thursday.
The hundred-plus page report looked into the department as a whole, and not just at the Lurry case, according to Raoul’s office.
Lurry was taken into custody during a drug arrest in Jan. 2020, with video showing Lurry being slapped by an officer. The officer then appeared to pinch Lurry’s nose closed for nearly two minutes, with officers saying they were trying to open his mouth. Another officer is seen on video inserting a baton into Lurry’s mouth.
He was eventually taken to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The Will County Coroner’s Office determined that Lurry had “fatal doses” of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine in his system, and called his death an accidental overdose.
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County prosecutors did not file charges against the police department, saying that Lurry’s death did not “result directly” from the officers’ actions.
The Attorney General’s Office investigation into the police department examined the approaches and training of officers, and aimed “not to relitigate” Lurry’s death.
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The report ultimately found that Joliet officers many times “use unreasonable force, which includes head strikes,” and that the department had shown a history of discriminating against Black and Brown people.
“Nothing was new for me,” Nicole Lurry said. “Three years ago, going into this investigation, I knew all of it was going to come out as factual.”
The Joliet Police Department issued a statement following the investigation’s release, saying they had undertaken dozens of policy updates to improve accountability, transparency and oversight in the aftermath of Lurry’s death.
The department also disputed the report’s findings, arguing that it “mischaracterized the department” and that it was “unclear what evidence or metrics were used to draw the conclusions” found in the report.
“This is not the Joliet Police Department of today, but rather a picture of the past,” Chief Bill Evans said in a statement. “Since the onset of the investigation, we have fully cooperated with the Attorney General’s Office. We provided them with unfettered access to all available information because we wanted to be as transparent as possible. In reading the report, we respectfully disagree with some of the conclusions drawn from their investigation.”
Joliet Mayor Terry D’Arcy, in a joint statement with Raoul’s office affirmed the city’s “shared commitment to ensuring constitutional policing.”
“Joliet residents deserve lawful and constitutional policing that is fair to all people, regardless of race or gender,” the statement read, in part. “Today’s report is not the conclusion. Rather we will collaboratively continue, and expand, the meaningful changes that have already been enacted since the election of Mayor D’Arcy.”
Nicole Lurry filed suit against the police department, with her attorney saying that Thursday’s report release could bolster their case.
That case remains pending.
