After the “Other Cases” section of CorruptCu was added, only one entry was made. However, I recently started my own news website for the very purpose of writing stories on related issues: www.CheckCU.org Check CU has many stories that cover issues of misconduct and corruption that local news companies refuse to touch. It also has a growing repository of public records acquired via FOIA. Essentially, I am attempting to solve the problem of accountability and responsibility caused by our incestuous public bodies. If you would like to help, please consider sending any public records that you have acquired through FOIA (or through other means) for which you think free public access would be beneficial (email checkcu@gmail.com). I would be happy to discuss tactics to help you focus on your specific area of interest, and then push out articles.
Champaign Police Officer William Killin Commits Felony Eavesdropping on Unsuspecting Citizen
On April 18, 2018, Emily Klose, a 25 year resident of Champaign and University of Illinois alumna, called Champaign Police Officer William Killin to discuss an incident that occurred between one of Klose’s tenants and a neighbor. The incident involved an argument about the parking habits of the tenant and the neighbor on a public street. Klose had already placed a few calls to the Champaign Police Department, and Officer Killin was expecting her call. Klose called from home and was unaware that Killin activated his body camera before taking the call. Killin set his body camera on the desk, pointing at the telephone, which he put on speakerphone so that he could record the audio. What ensued was a 29 minute conversation wherein Killin became increasingly agitated and argumentative while speaking to Klose, who maintained a calm and rational demeanor. It was only after 26.5 minutes that Killin said the call was being recorded, in an attempt to argue that he hadn’t said something earlier in the call (which he was actually wrong about). Shortly after, Klose ended the call. Illinois has an eavesdropping statute that expressly forbids this type of secret recording, and Officer William Killin had just blatantly committed a felony.
Champaign Police Officer William Killin Injuring Alton Corey
In May of 2018 Killin acquired a great deal of notoriety for becoming belligerent and smashing Alton Corey’s face into a steel door during a routine call, which resulted in a $220,000 settlement with the City. According to documents received through a public records request, Killin recorded the conversation at the direction of Officer Bruce Ramseyer. The Illinois Eavesdropping Statute (720 ILCS 5/14-1), from which law enforcement officers are not exempt, indicates that Ramseyer also committed a felony offense by directing Killin to record the conversation. It may also interest the reader to know that the Champaign Police were perfectly willing to provide an unredacted copy of the audio and video, wherein the names and addresses of several neighbors (some not even involved in the incident) are clearly intelligible. The video was obtained through FOIA.
The illegal activity that William Killin and Bruce Ramseyer engaged in is only the beginning of the story. Shortly after the incident, Emily Klose spoke to Sgt. Colby Oleson, who confirmed that Killin should not have used his body camera in such a way. Klose then called Lt. Tod Myers, who was the Professional Standards Officer at the time, and responsible for handling citizen complaints. Klose left a message indicating her intent to file a complaint, but Myers did not return her call. Instead, he directed Lt. Tom Petrilli to call Klose and explain their body camera policy. A week later, on May 30th, 2018, Klose personally went to the Champaign Police station and inquired about filing a citizen’s complaint. Sgt. Colby Oleson gave Klose their official citizen’s complaint packet. The next day, Klose returned to the station with a typed two page letter titled in bold “CHAMPAIGN POLICE DEPARTMENT CITIZEN’S COMPLAINT”. The letter was well-written, well-researched, and uses the word “complaint” 8 times. The letter was signed and dated, and was attached to the official citizen’s complaint form, filled out exactly as instructed. Klose closes the letter with, “I request that my complaint now be addressed with alacrity, transparency, and accountability”.
On June 5th, 2018, Lt. Tod Myers wrote an email to Emily Klose which read, “I just wanted to let you know I had received your complaint letter …” and that he had “sent your concern to our legal department”. However, in the documents supplied through FOIA, there is no record of Myers forwarding the complaint to anyone, or taking any action at all.
Due to the history of pervasive corruption within the Champaign Police Department, the City of Champaign created a Citizen Review Subcommittee in 2017, and the process for handling citizen complaints is established in the laws put into place by the city council. Taking an official complaint, and forwarding it as a “concern” to the legal department, is not one of the steps involved (and it is not clear that Myers even did that much). Myers decided to simply ignore the complaint.
After 2 months had passed, Emily Klose contacted Lt. Tod Myers to check on the status of her complaint. Myers, having taken no action to investigate the complaint, simply responded that he will “reach out to Legal this morning to see what they have found out”. Two days later, on August 8th, 2018, Myers emails Klose: “It is not legal’s interpretation that a person has an expectation of privacy while in their home and that conversation is being held over the phone.” Myers says “The video on this case is not a flagged video and not subject to FOIA. Our retention period for this video was 90 days and has since rolled off the server.” Through FOIA, Emily Klose had already received a copy of the video 2.5 months before Myers made this claim, and this is indicated clearly in Klose’s formal complaint, submitted to Myers.
Emily Klose, upset that Lt. Tod Myers decided to simply ignore her formal complaint submission, contacted City Manager’s Office. Rachel Joy, the Community Relations Manager & Compliance Officer, after speaking to Myers, responds to Klose: “you did not have an official complaint and instead an inquiry regarding the legal use of body cam video. Therefore, our office was not in receipt of a formal police complaint.”
Joy goes on to describe the official police complaint process – precisely the process that Klose had already followed. Klose explains in an email to Rachel Joy that she personally filed the official complaint paperwork at the Champaign Police Station, and that she has copies of the original complaint. Joy forwards Klose’s most recent email to Assistant City Attorney Laura Hall, writing, “Hi Laura, Sharing the 2nd response I received. I BCC’d you on my first response. I will not be responding to this email below, but wanted to share the email string. Thanks, Rachel.” Rachel Joy, the Compliance Officer for the City of Champaign, decided to simply ignore the fact that Lt. Tod Myers has disappeared an official citizen’s complaint, and to literally ignore Klose’s email which indicates the same.
On Monday August 20th, 2018, Emily Klose decided to email the Champaign City Council directly, indicating the willful failure of the Champaign Police, City Manager, and City Legal Department. On the same day, Schneur Nathan, a Chicago attorney with a history of successfully suing the Champaign Police Department, asked the city for files related to the Emily Klose incident. Nathan was already handling a lawsuit for another case involving Officer Killin, wherein Killin became belligerent and smashed Alton Corey’s face into a steel door during a routine call. With the city council asking questions, and an outside attorney sniffing for documents, the efforts of the Champaign Police and city staff to snuff Klose’s complaint became untenable. By the end of the week, Lt. Tod Myers writes an apology to Klose, “I believed that the letter you had submitted was not a formal complaint but rather a legal question.” After nearly 3 months of trying to subvert the complaint process, and substantial effort by Emily Klose, Myers finally began a complaint investigation.
Miraculously, Myers found the body camera video that he previously claimed was deleted. Myers processed the complaint without interviewing Emily Klose, and Klose was not informed about the Citizen Review Subcommittee meeting to discuss the complaint on September 12, 2018. Despite Officer William Killin (and likely Bruce Ramseyer) having committed felonies, Lt. Tod Myers exonerates Killin in his report. Myers writes, “I do not interpret the policy to mean just because a person is calling from inside their residence that the reasonable expectation of privacy applies… I do not believe Officer Killin violated the policy as it is written”. Bruce Ramseyer, upon reading Myer’s report, writes, “I read the memo and agree”. In a letter to Chief Cobb, the Chair of the Citizen Review Subcommittee, Emily Rodriguez, agrees with Myers’s report. Rodriguez writes, “Our subcommittee agrees with the completeness, thoroughness, objectiveness and fairness by which the complaint was investigated”. Deputy Chief Troy Daniels concurs, writing a paragraph wherein he gets confused about Illinois statutes regarding eavesdropping. On October 25, 2018, Chief Anthony Cobb, after receiving all of this input, exonerates Officer Killin in his letter closing the complaint.
On November 20, 2018, Emily Klose wrote a letter to Champaign City Manager Dorothy David, requesting an appeal to Chief Cobb’s decision to exonerate Killin. Klose also hired an attorney, David B. Wesner of Acton & Snyder, LLP, to represent her. Wesner reviewed all of the documentation and wrote a letter to City Manager Dorothy indicating that “Officer Killin clearly violated the Eavesdropping statute.” Wesner writes, “Your Legal Department has also offered the opinion that people do not have an expectation of privacy in their home. I believe the Constitution does not support this opinion. Your City’s policy on body-worn cameras also does not support this opinion. Section 41.11.4(O) provides: ‘Officers must provide notice of recording to any person if the person has a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as a person’s place of residence…’” Klose and Wesner requested a meeting with the City Manager.
More than three months later, on February 26, 2019, Emily Klose and her attorney David Wesner met with City Manager Dorothy David and Assistant City Attorney Laura Hall to discuss the incident. On March 15, 2019, David wrote a final decision, agreeing with the previous findings by Lt. Tod Myers and Chief Cobb. David argues that because the subject matter of discussion between Klose and Killin was about an incident that partially occurred in a public place (in this case, a neighborhood street), the conversation itself is public record. David writes, “The incident occurred in public and any record of it is public record. It is the City’s position that this was not a private conversation as defined by the eavesdropping statute.” It would appear that the City of Champaign is arguing that they are within their rights to secretly record any conversation wherein the subject of discussion has something to do with anything that happened in a public place.
More than a year later, Emily Klose is still pursuing a meaningful resolution to her case. The justice process, as well as every tool provided by the City of Champaign to correct injustices, seems to have completely failed at the hands of corrupt officials. Unfortunately, not Klose, nor any other citizen, can discover what happens at any Citizen Review Subcommittee meeting wherein a complaint is discussed, because the meetings happen in closed sessions, and no documents about those meetings are available to the public. How the Citizen Review Subcommittee managed to find that Killin had done no wrong, when he had clearly committed a felony, will continue to be a mystery. If the story of Emily Klose, who shouldered every burden in a procedurally perfect manner, is riddled with such corruption and incompetence, what happens with other police complaints? How many complaints have simply disappeared or been covered up at the hands of corrupt officials? Is this why the Citizen Review Subcommittee has only heard 6 complaints in over 1.5 years?
Note from the author: I became aware of Ms. Klose’s story on May 8th, when she and I both spoke at the Citizen Review Subcommittee meeting about the current travesty of police accountability. At a Champaign City Council meeting on March 26, 2019, I asked the City Council how we could expect the police to review themselves in misconduct cases, given their very noticeable propensity to falsely purport reality. Ms. Klose’s story perfectly demonstrates how the current system is impossibly corrupt. I should note that I am actually not in favor of two party consent when it comes to recording, but police should not be above the law. I am also far less concerned with the crime itself, than I am with the way the city handled the complaint. Even when a police officer commits a crime and it is well documented, the justice system and the complaint process still manage to fail in innumerable ways. I don’t believe the fix comes in the form of another policy change. I believe the fix comes in the form of holding personal responsibility and accountability as values of primary importance. All of the following people appear to be complicit in this corruption: Chief Anthony Cobb, Deputy Chief Tod Myers, Deputy Chief Troy Daniels, Lt. of Professional Standards Bruce Ramseyer, City Attorney Fred Stavins, Assistant City Attorney Laura Hall, Community Relations Manager & Compliance Officer Rachel Joy, and City Manager Dorothy David. Many of these same names appear in my original letter, “Corruption and Incompetence in Champaign County”. This is not the first time Tod Myers has been observed investigating a misconduct claim without ever speaking to the victim. The fact that Bruce Ramseyer is repeatedly involved in the practice of misinformation, and is now the new Lt. of Professional Standards, is especially worrisome. Ramseyer, the officer most frequently engaged in twisting reality in order to make the Champaign Police look good in the news, is now in charge of handling complaints against the Champaign Police.
Immediately after posting this article, I attempted to post a link to it on the Champaign Police Facebook page, only to find that I have been banned from posting comments there. This appears to be just one more attempt to subvert the notion of open and transparent government, not to mention a First Amendment violation.
