Joliet Police Supervisors: Sgt. Esqueda Faces Expulsion

JOLIET, IL — Javier Esqueda, the Joliet Police sergeant who got a national award from the Lamplighter Project for being a whistleblower in the Eric Lurry case, has received notice from fellow Joliet Police Sgt. Patrick Cardwell that Esqueda faces expulsion from the Joliet Police Supervisors Association.

A vote on Esqueda's expulsion is set for Nov. 10 at the Joliet Moose Lodge.

A copy of Cardwell's expulsion letter can be seen at the bottom of this Joliet Patch article.

Esqueda has been a member of the Joliet police force for 28 years. He came forward in the summer of 2020 revealing that he believed fellow Joliet police officers engaged in misconduct and evidence tampering in connection with Lurry's Joliet police in-custody death.

Illinois Attorney General Kwane Raoul recently announced that he has opened a civil rights unlawful policing investigation targeting the Joliet Police Department.

One year ago this week, Esqueda was charged with several felony counts of official misconduct by members of his own police department. The charges were filed in connection with Esqueda's decision to furnish Chicago CBS television reporter Dave Savini with Joliet police videos showing Lurry dying in the presence of several Joliet officers on police station property.

In May, Joliet Patch broke the news that Joliet police officer Jose Tellez received a six-day suspension from Joliet Police Chief Dawn Malec because he went inside his squad car and turned off the in-camera video system, which stopped both the video and audio recording, as Lurry was dying in Joliet police custody, on Jan. 28, 2020.

Patch also reported that in one of Al Roechner's final decisions running the Joliet Police Department, the city's departing police chief in January notified Sgt. Doug May he was getting a seven-day suspension in connection with an incident in the Joliet police parking lot on Jan. 28, 2020, in which "you used disrespectful language, slapped and made other contact with an arrestee."

Meanwhile, the Joliet Police Department is now on its third chief of police this year.

Roechner agreed to submit notice of his resignation in January in exchange for a $31,000 salary increase that let Roecher spike his retirement pension from the city of Joliet.

Earlier this month, Joliet City Manager Jim Capparelli announced that Roechner's replacement, Dawn Malec, was fired as chief of police after nine months on the job. Patch has since learned that Malec's termination has turned into a demotion, and she is being allowed to remain a city employee under her previous rank, a police lieutenant.

Robert Brown, who became a deputy chief of operations in January, has been named as the interim chief; Capparelli has launched a national candidate search to hire Joliet's next police chief from outside the department, something that has not happened in Joliet since the 1990s.

In September, Esqueda, who was stripped of his police powers a year ago, told Joliet Patch's editor that he was happy with Raoul's decision to open a widespread investigation into allegations of unlawful policing by members of the Joliet Police Department over a long period of time.

"I was excited when I heard about it; I read about it today," Esqueda told Joliet Patch and CBS Chicago Channel 2 investigative reporter Dave Savini. "I was excited because there's a lot of good officers in the Joliet Police Department that are still working there, and I'm sure they want the right thing to be done, and they have to work there for the next 28 to 30 years.

"This is a good thing for the department, and it's good for all of them."