Joliet Police Dept. Adds LGBT Liaison Officer

When the position of an LGBT liaison officer was introduced in other police departments, Joliet Police Chief Brian Benton thought his department could use one, as well.

At about the same time, the Human Rights Campaign did a survey on different cities and how they ranked with the gay community. Joliet happened to be one of the places surveyed.

According to Joilet Police Officer Shawn Carnes, who volunteered to be the new liaison officer, the results of the survey were not as good as the department hoped they would be.

“We didn’t do too good,” Carnes said. “We didn’t do bad, but we didn’t do too good, either.”

Carnes said the director of the Community Alliance and Action Network group, a local lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community based on N. Chicago St. in Joliet, felt that while the LGBT community didn’t feel discriminated against, they did feel ignored.

Those events culminated in pushing to create the Joliet LGBT liaison officer.

As liaison officer, Carnes said he’s reached out to various LGBT groups, like CAAN and the LGBT group at Joliet Junior College.

“The first thing for me to do is outreach into the community and let them know that I’m here,” Carnes said.

Future programs or events will be based on the results of a CAAN survey of the LGBT community.

“(It’s) to find out what their needs and concerns are,” Carnes said. “Once we get the results of all that we’ll go from there.”

For now, Carnes will be the only LGBT liaison officer, but thought has been given to adding more.

“We may need to transfer into a group or panel involving both police officers and members of the gay community,” he said. “There’s potential for all kinds of growth.”

Carnes isn’t just an advocate of LGBT rights, he’s also a member of the community. So far, he’s received an overwhelming amount of support from his co-workers and fellow officers.

“It’s been quite a pleasure to see the response and the positive reaction from all my co-workers and my friends here at work,” he said. “It really has been a joy.”

As many young gay people have experienced, growing up gay was not easy for Carnes.

“That was still part of the normal culture of society. Homosexuality was looked down upon. It was just beginning to change when I was still young,” he said.

Carnes came out over a period of time during his 20s to the closest people in his life when he began to feel comfortable with himself. Gradually, he came out to more co-workers and friends.

Now that times have changed, Carnes hopes people will have the courage to come out of the closet and make Joliet a community where LGBT people are not discriminated against or marginalized.

“Let’s get out here and start making ourselves seen and known and then when we see what kind of reaction we get, we’ll go from there,” he said. “If we’re having negative effects or impact, we’ll work with it.”