Roechner Suspends Joliet Detective Joe Clement 5 Weeks

JOLIET, IL — Joliet Police Chief Al Roechner has suspended veteran Joliet Police Detective Joe Clement, who is closely aligned with Mayor Bob O'Dekirk and may run against the Mudron 5 in next year's city council races, for five weeks without pay.

Clement serves as an elected official on the Joliet Park Board. Patch obtained his Joliet Police Department personnel file in December as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents showed that Clement had had no disciplinary measures taken against him at any point during the past decade. Clement did have several awards and commendations during that period.

On Friday, all members of the Joliet Police Department received a formal notice of the personnel order and the subject was titled, "SUSPENSION."

Until his recent removal from working at City Hall by Chief Roechner's administration, Clement had worked in the Mayor's Office since Fred Hayes was chief of police 11 years ago.

Clement was assigned to the mayor's office to handle matters involving liquor licenses including applications, violations and investigations. As a deputy liquor commissioner and master patrol officer, Clement worked in the office under three different administrations, starting when Art Schultz was mayor. Clement remained assigned to the office during Tom Giarrante's four-year term and when O'Dekirk was first elected in April 2015.

Friday's memo informed everyone that Clement "will serve a 25 workday suspension for violation of department rules and regulations." The suspension is retroactive to Dec. 27.

Back on Sept. 30, Joliet Mayor Bob O'Dekirk announced at a city council meeting that he believed a political attack was orchestrated against him, Councilwoman Jan Quillman and Joliet Police Detective Joe Clement, and O'Dekirk wanted everyone to know that Police Chief Al Roechner is currently under investigation.

The suspension of Clement stems from the September controversy involving Joliet Police Sgt. Lindsey Heavener at the city's Mexican fiesta.

The mayor told Patch that month that several people contacted him on the day of the Mexican fiesta, concerning Heavener being on duty at the fiesta and possibly consuming alcohol from a plastic red cup at the tequila bar set up in downtown Joliet across from the Rialto.

Clement was apparently one of the people who believed Sgt. Heavener may have been drinking on the job. Roechner, who is a close friend of Heavener according to several sources, ultimately cleared Heavener of any cloud of suspicion surrounding the incident, according to an internal affairs memo Joliet Patch obtained in another Freedom of Information Act request.

This week, a certified letter from the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council informed Acting Joliet City Manager Steve Jones that Joliet's patrol officers' union is fed up with Roechner and his internal affairs practices.

The letter was written by Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council General Counsel Tamara Cummings and Joliet Police FOP Lodge President Mike DeVito "to express concerns we have with the current disciplinary process."

"The Chief of Police is the final decision maker and as such he must be fair, objective and unbiased. Yet certain recent occurrences have caused the members to question his objectivity," the letter reads. "Most troubling is the fact that he is inserting himself in the investigatory process. Thus, we are concerned that we are not getting a fair and unbiased decision at the end of what is supposed to be an impartial, thorough and objective process."