Lyons Library Official Detained At July 4 Event; Video At Issue

LYONS, IL – A Lyons Public Library trustee was briefly detained and taken to the police station during the village's July 4 festivities.

Richard O'Brien, who was elected to the library board in 2023, said he had been drinking and badmouthing Mayor Chris Getty at Veterans Park when police handcuffed him.

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He said officers told him to quit the badmouthing.

"They handcuffed me and said, 'You're going to the county jail tonight,'" O'Brien said in an interview.

O'Brien said the police never told him what he would be charged with. He was walked to the nearby police station and released a short while later. He lives a block away.

A couple of weeks ago, Patch filed a public records request for the police report on the incident.

The village's manager, Thomas Sheahan, responded that he was looking for the document. He asked whether Patch wanted the video of the July 4 encounter and another one involving O'Brien that occurred around that time. Patch said it did.

Early last week, O'Brien said he was asked to go to Village Hall to speak with officials. He said he met with Sheahan, village attorney Martin Stack and Norberto Cisneros, the mayor's executive assistant.

O'Brien said he was asked to leave his phone with an employee outside the meeting room.

"They didn't want me to record it," he said.

They then played for him the video of the two incidents. He said they told him that a library trustee shouldn't act like he was seen in the video. They said he was drunk and obnoxious.

O'Brien admitted to drinking, but disagreed with the officials' assessment.

"I was very polite," he said.

O'Brien said they handed him a prepared resignation letter and asked him to sign it, but he refused.

About the video, he said, the officials told him they would be happy to see it released, even on CNN.

He said he wanted the village to release the footage. As for the implied threat with the video, he said, "This is what they do with anyone who goes against Getty."

Under state law, the village was supposed to have released the requested documentation and videos within five business days or sought an extension. Lyons passed that deadline Friday.

Getty, Sheahan, Stack and Cisneros did not return messages for comment.

In an interview, O'Brien said he had been considered an ally of Getty. But he said he has been a critic of late.

He has taken to the Lyons Living page on Facebook to criticize Getty and his allies.

O'Brien has been sympathetic to complaints from Ferrai Pickett. On the Facebook page, Pickett said she has witnessed racism at the library and discovered that rodents are a problem there.

The library's director is Daniel Hilker, an elected village trustee. He is a political supporter of Getty, circulating petitions for the mayor's independent bid for Congress.

Hilker became the director more than a decade ago, although he had no experience or education related to heading a library.

According to the Cook County Chronicle, Hilker lacked a master's degree in library science, but the library board changed the qualifications to accept Hilker's graduate work in education at Dominican University.

Hilker has served on the Lyons Village Board for 15 years. Getty became mayor in 2009.