Samantha Harer Died During Domestic: Newspaper

JOLIET, IL - Troubled Crest Hill Police Officer Felipe "Phil" Flores, who was accused of public drunkenness, driving while intoxicated and sexually assaulting a sleeping woman in 2016 though no criminal charges were filed, told 911 dispatchers on Feb. 13, 2018 that he and his 23-year-old girlfriend, Samantha Harer, were in an argument when she suffered a deadly gunshot wound at her apartment, according to a story published by Joliet Herald-News reporter Alex Ortiz.

Ortiz, through a follow-up Freedom of Information request to the WESCOM 911 dispatch center in Plainfield, obtained access to the original 911 call made by Flores, the Crest Hill cop. Flores and Harer were dating since the summer of 2017.

Eleven months ago, Harer died of a gunshot wound under suspicious circumstances while Officer Flores was inside her studio apartment on a Tuesday morning. Immediately after her death, he assured his brothers in blue from a number of fellow Will County police agencies — including but not limited to the Channahon Police Department — that Harer, a 911 dispatcher for WESCOM, put a gun to her head, but he was unable to prevent the shooting.

The Jan. 9 Herald-News article reported that Flores told 911 dispatchers that performing CPR on Harer was of no use. "She isn't breathing. I can see brain matter," the newspaper article stated.

Flores is the same cop who avoided sexual assault charges two years earlier, when he was the subject of a criminal investigation that began at the Crest Hill Police Department and was later handed off to Illinois State Police District 5 in Lockport.

Eventually, the State's Attorney's Office informed the Illinois State Police that a decision was made not to file sexual assault charges against Officer Flores unless more evidence materialized in the future.

In any event, The Herald-News article indicates that Flores called 911 dispatchers at around 8:15 a.m. Feb. 13, claiming that he and Harer were in a heated argument at the time she was shot to death in Channahon.

"We were arguing," Flores said, according to Ortiz's story in The Herald-News. "She told me to leave. I left. I heard her gun rack. She locked herself in the bedroom, and she pulled the trigger and I came busting in."

To read the entire article in the Joliet newspaper, you can do so here.

In my opinion, nobody who worked in law enforcement in Will County had an easier year on the job than Officer Flores of Crest Hill in 2018.

Flores, who makes an $80,000 salary as a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. patrolman, got paid ten-and-a-half months to stay home from work, all on the Crest Hill taxpayer's dime, while the death of his girlfriend was being treated as an open investigation.

The decision to pay Flores to be away from work had the support of Crest Hill Mayor Ray Soliman as well as Crest Hill City Administrator Heather McGuire.

Then came the events of Dec. 28, 2018.

Late that Friday afternoon, Channahon Deputy Chief of Police Adam Bogart issued a press release announcing: "The Will County Coroner has determined that Samantha's cause of death was by a self-inflicted gunshot wound ... That finding is consistent with, and supported by the evidence presented by this multi-jurisdictional investigation."

Aside from whether Channahon Police jumped to the initial wrong conclusion and completely botched the Samantha Harer death investigation, let's turn our attention to Crest Hill for the rest of this column.

Should Crest Hill residents have unconditional faith in their city leaders, city council, their current police administration to make sure that the men and women assigned to patrol Crest Hill's streets and neighborhoods are on the up and up?

Should Crest Hill trust Phil Flores to climb back inside a squad car, with a badge, a holster and a loaded gun in January 2019?

The following information is from an official police report I obtained last year stemming from the March 5, 2016, criminal sexual assault investigation launched against Officer Flores.

That case was opened at the Crest Hill Police Department. No charges resulted, just like no criminal charges resulted from the Samantha Harer death investigation.

For background, Kristen Kurtz told Joliet Patch last year that she was comfortable with Patch publishing her name in an article related to the fact that she lodged a formal police report accusing Flores of raping her at her house in Crest Hill. She was 30 at the time.

Additionally, Patch learned, the police incident report showed that she had the support of a high-ranking Joliet Police detective, who was a relative of hers. He even accompanied her to the Crest Hill Police Department to make her report and to go through the emotional interview process.

From that report:

"Kristen M. Kurtz related that she had been at Bobbie's Tap, Joliet, IL drinking and Philip Flores had come to the bar, and they began a conversation about their past being roommates that had ended badly, and he wanted to apologize for some of his behavior towards her.

"Kristen M. Kurtz stated that once they finished up at Bobbie's Tap, she and her friend ... were leaving ... and Phil Flores told her he would follow her home also to make sure she made it back ... Kristen Kratz stated that once she got home she passed out in her bed and awoke sometime later to find a male, later identified as Phillip Flores, sexually assaulting her, laying on top of her.

"Kristen M. Kurtz related that when she first woke up, she was still 'groggy' and at first thought it was a dream ... but then realized it was not a dream, that it was Phillip Flores and told him to get off of her, that she told him 'No,' that he was not going to do this to her."

Kurtz later obtained a protection order at the Will County Courthouse against Flores, which was granted by the judges. An excerpt reads: "I was so upset I could not even process what had happened. I was afraid because Phillip is a police officer in the city I live in. I thought the police would do nothing for me. I tried to forget what happened, someone said something to me and it triggered something and I knew I had to do something and report this.

"I fear for my safety as Phillip has guns. I am afraid to stay at my own home. I have bought a camera for my home."

Here's what Crest Hill Police Chief Ed Clark had to say about the matter back on Jan. 19, 2017: "Officer Felipe Flores ... was witnessed by members of the public consuming alcohol to the point of intoxication. Officer Flores then drove a motor vehicle while being in this state. This is a violation of the vehicle code ... driving under the influence of alcohol ... Officer Flores also put himself in a position in which a criminal accusation was alleged (against) him. Alcohol intoxication may have played a role in this ..."

On Friday, Dec. 28, 2018, Chief Clark issued yet another statement related to Officer Flores, this time in regard to Samantha Harer's death.

By then, Flores had been on paid suspension since February.

"Flores will return to administrative police duties in 2019 while the Crest Hill Police Department conducts an internal investigation to determine if any violation of department policies occurred ... The city of Crest Hill Police Department is committed to holding its officers to the highest standards of integrity to ensure the trust and confidence of the citizens they protect and serve."

When I was growing up in Joliet, police officers were considered a special group of people.

Several of my classmates at St. Mary Nativity Grade School had dads on the Joliet Police Department, and these were officers who brought honor and great professionalism to the job, people like Bill Fitzgerald and Fred Hafner, among many others.

Can you imagine the Joliet Police Department in their ongoing job application process filling a vacancy with a current Will County police officer who a) was known to be intoxicated at a bar and chose to drink and drive b) was accused of raping a sleeping woman and c) was also involved in a heated domestic spat inside their much younger girlfriend's apartment, and she died of a gunshot to her head, and he maintained she committed suicide?

There is no way on earth the Joliet Police Department would ever choose to hire Phil Flores away from Crest Hill in 2019 or in the future.

The bigger question is whether Crest Hill's Heather McGuire, Ed Clark and Ray Soliman will make sure Flores isn't behind the wheel of a Crest Hill Police cruiser in 2019 or any point in the future.

Are they willing to sacrifice their own local government careers in order to make sure that Officer Flores continues to hold down a job with the Crest Hill Police force?

That remains to be seen.

A Joliet native and former investigative reporter and editor with USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin, John Ferak is Patch Editor for Joliet, New Lenox and Bolingbrook and Patch coverage for Shorewood and Channahon-Minooka.

Main image provided to Patch with permission to use