Politics & Government

Whistleblower Stripped Of Joliet Police Powers: Sources

Two members of Police Chief Al Roechner's administration, Lt. Chris Botzum and Sgt. James Rouse, made a visit to Sgt. Javier Esqueda.

Joliet Police sergeant Javier Esqueda is the whistleblower surrounding the in-custody death of a Black Joliet man, Eric Lurry.
Joliet Police sergeant Javier Esqueda is the whistleblower surrounding the in-custody death of a Black Joliet man, Eric Lurry. (Image via City of Joliet)

JOLIET, IL — The Joliet police sergeant who identified himself as the whistleblower in the Eric Lurry in-custody death at the Joliet Police Department has been stripped of his police powers and assigned to administrative desk duty, Joliet Patch has learned.

Joliet Patch spoke to multiple sources Monday who said Joliet Police Sgt. Javier Esqueda has been stripped of his police powers and will be given a desk duty assignment for the indefinite future.

Sources told Patch that Lt. Chris Botzum as well as Sgt. James Rouse, of the Internal Affairs unit, visited Esqueda on Monday afternoon to notify him to surrender his police-issued handgun, his badge and his take-home police vehicle.

"All his police powers were taken away from him," a source told Patch.

Joliet Patch has left a message seeking comment from Joliet Police Chief Al Roechner. Patch will update this article if Roechner responds.

Last week, Esqueda told Chicago's CBS Channel 2 that fellow members of the Joliet Police Department may have caused Eric Lurry to suffocate in the backseat of a police car on Jan. 28.

For several months, the Joliet Police Department had successfully kept under wraps the existence of a videotape that showed Lurry dying in the backseat of a Joliet squad car.

Joliet police, working closely with the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force, maintained that Lurry's death was still under investigation, even though the case had stalled and nothing much was being done on it.

A while back, Esqueda learned of the squad car video's existence, and he obtained copies which were later shown to the Joliet City Council on June 23. Esqueda wanted others to know about the video's existence because he suspected that members of his own department might be involved in tampering with the evidence. For instance, the audio cuts out abruptly shortly after Sgt. Doug May smacks Lurry in the head and says, "wake up, b----."

Sgt. May also held Lurry's nose shut for nearly two minutes while Lurry had a bag of narcotics lodged in his throat, restricting his ability to breathe.

"He was suffocating," Joliet Police Sgt. Esqueda told CBS Chicago investigative journalist Dave Savini on July 2. "In my opinion, anybody would suffocate in that situation."

Esqueda also revealed to CBS Channel 2 that it would take evidence tampering to lose sound on the Joliet squad car's video system.

"It was almost like the supervisor looks off and says something to somebody, and then you hear the sound cut out. That's what alerted me that possibly, they were trying to get rid of evidence," Esqueda told CBS Chicago last week.

Patch learned that Esqueda is expected to appear before an administration review hearing at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.

"I feel Al (Roechner) probably wants to get even with him," one source said.

Patch has previously reported that rookie officer Andrew McCue was responsible for driving Lurry, who was in handcuffs, back to the downtown police station. All the Joliet police officers involved in Lurry's arrest on the afternoon of Jan. 28 managed to overlook that Lurry had drugs in his possession at the time they put him handcuffs and transported him back to the station.

Lurry is seen in the squad car video with a bag in his mouth. After he begins to overdose inside the squad car, Sgt. May intervenes and pinches Lurry's nostrils shut for nearly two minutes, according to the video, leaving Lurry unresponsive.

Lurry was pronounced dead around 2:30 a.m. at the AMITA St. Joe's hospital in Joliet.

Last week, Will County Coroner Patrick O'Neil and Will County State's Attorney's James Glasgow issued statements exonerating the Joliet police officers of criminal wrongdoing in Lurry's death. Glasgow and O'Neil indicated that Lurry died of a drug overdose involving Fentanyl, heroin and cocaine.

Glasgow's news release, however, was not as strongly worded as the one put out by O'Neil, officials told Patch on Friday.

"Eric Lurry's death was caused by the ingestion of fatal amounts of heroin, Fentanyl and cocaine and did not result directly from any action or inaction by an officer of the Joliet Police Department," Glasgow wrote the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force on July 2.

One source told Patch that punishing Esqueda for drawing national attention to the in-custody death of a Black man from Joliet should not be surprising.

"Right now, the department is really run by intimidation and retaliation," the source said.

Meanwhile, on Monday morning, Joliet Patch reported that a petition launched at Change.Org seeks to fire two Joliet officers involved in Eric Lurry's death, Sgt. Doug May and rookie Officer Andrew McCue. At the time of Patch's report, about 4,200 people had signed the petition.

By 8 p.m., the petition had been renamed: "Have The Officers Charged In The Death Of Eric Lurry," and 19,115 people had signed the petition.

Image via FOIA/Joliet Patch
Image via FOIA/Joliet Patch
Image via FOIA/Joliet Patch
Image via FOIA/Joliet Patch
Second from left, Joliet Police Chief Al Roechner, image via John Ferak/Patch

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