Whistleblower 'Brave Hero' For Exposing Lurry's Death: BPOA

JOLIET, IL — The president of the Joliet Police Department's Black Police Officer Association praised Sgt. Javier "Butch" Esqueda for revealing that he is the whistleblower surrounding the in-custody death and police video involving Eric Lurry, who died on Jan. 29.

"He's a member, and we're going to back him,"remarked Dave Jackson, president of his department's Black Police Officers Association, which includes about 30 officers and supervisors of all races.

"If someone's doing the right thing, we're going to stand right there with them. Sgt. Esqueda has been held as a well-respected supervisor and United States Marine and has served his country and his community proudly," Jackson added.

Jackson also called Esqueda "brave as well as a hero" for coming forward.

Esqueda, a 27-year Joliet police veteran serves as a field training supervisor for newer officers. He told a Chicago television station that he began to suspect that fellow supervisors were tampering and or destroying evidence surrounding the controversial death of Lurry.

During these past five months, the Joliet Police Department upper administration, Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force, Coroner Patrick O'Neil and State's Attorney James Glasgow all stayed silent about the events surrounding Lurry's death.

Meanwhile, as the case remained on a hiatus, Esqueda had obtained a copy of the squad car camera video showing Lurry dying in the presence of Sgt. Doug May, who helps run the drug unit for Joliet Police.

"Without Sgt. Esqueda drawing attention to this death to city officials, this in-custody death may still be pending," Jackson remarked Thursday.

Esqueda told a Chicago television station that a yet-to-be identified Joliet officer appears to deliberately tamper with a squad car's audio system in the Joliet police station parking lot on the afternoon of Jan. 28 just as Sgt. May slapped Lurry in the head and called him a bitch in the back seat of rookie officer Andrew McCue's squad car.

From that point forward in the seven-minute video shown to the Joliet City Council on June 23, the squad car audio remains shut off, and you do not hear Sgt. May or the other police officers talking. One of the nearby officers is Lt. Jeremy Harrison, who also works in the drug narcotics unit.

Meanwhile, in the back of the squad car, Sgt. May held Lurry's nose shut for nearly two minutes, and Lurry never regained consciousness during the remainder of the squad car camera video revealed by Sgt. Esqueda to the Joliet City Council.

At the time of the incident, Lurry had concealed a bag in his mouth that Sgt. May and the others suspected were drugs.

"Butch, he's extremely credible," Jackson told Patch's editor on Thursday. "What he saw in that video was disturbing, that's what he's quoted as saying on CBS."

By the time, the Joliet Fire Department was called to the police parking lot, Lurry was unresponsive. Lurry was pronounced dead around 2 a.m. Jan. 29 at St. Joe's hospital.

He was 37, and left behind a wife and several children.

"Butch should be held up as a hero and someone that is trusted," Jackson told Joliet Patch. "They should never be able to tarnish his badge. You see something, you say something, look what happened in Minneapolis with George Floyd when officers sat back and watched that other officer with his knee on George Floyd's neck and failed to intervene."

Patch's editor left a long message seeking Chief Al Roechner's reaction to Sgt. Esqueda's television interviews with CBS Chicago this week, but Roechner did not return calls Thursday.

Patch also reached out to two of Esqueda's supervisors for their reactions to his whistleblower media appearances, but they did not return messages to Patch Thursday.

Incidentally, on Thursday, Will County State's Attorney Jim Glasgow issued a statement declaring that his prosecution team will not be filing charges against anyone at the Joliet Police Department surrounding the events of Lurry's death.

Glasgow indicated that Lurry died as a result of a drug overdose, including heroin, Fentanyl and cocaine in his system.