I have many updates which I need to catch up on in regards to my CorruptCU story, but the most significant thing I’ve been working on lately is my own news website: 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.
3-28-2019
I spoke for the 2nd time at the Champaign City Council meeting about how incompetent the Champaign Police are at performing an investigation, using my own arrest as an example. Following that night’s meeting, I sent this email to the Mayor and city council members:
“Mayor Feinen & Council,
At the March 26 city council meeting, Mayor Feinen expressed some uncertainty about the city having already made clear that CorruptCU was of community importance. There seemed to be some confusion as to why people were still trying to raise awareness and ask for answers.
My CorruptCU letter went out on December 20, 2018. Over three months later, before my announcement to speak again at the March 26 city council meeting, this is the extent of City of Champaign response I’d received:
Mayor Deborah Frank Feinen – no response
Deputy Mayor Tom Bruno – no response
District 1 representative Clarissa Nickerson Fourman – email response on 12/20/2018 indicating receipt my letter, no further response
District 2 representative Alicia Beck – no response
District 3 representative Angie Brix – no response
District 4 representative Greg Stock – no response
District 5 representative Vanna Pianfetti – no response
Representative, at large Will Kyles – no response, then spoke to me briefly after I spoke at the 3/19/2019 city council meeting
Representative, at large Matthew Gladney – no response
Chief of Police Anthony Cobb – no response
Deputy Chief of Operations Troy Daniels – no response
Deputy Chief of Professional Standards Joseph Gallo – no response
Deputy Chief of Operational Support David Shaffer – no response
Professional Standards Lieutenant Tod Myers – indicated he was ‘reviewing my blog’ sometime in January, did not return my subsequent phone calls until after I spoke at the 3/19/2019 council meeting
Investigations Division Lieutenant Nathan Rath – no response
Human Relations Commission Chair Alissia Young – no response
HRC Vice Chair Demario Turner – no response
HRC Vice Chair Kenton Elmore – no response, then spoke with me after I spoke at the 3/19/2019 city council meeting
HRC Vice Chair Barbara Bressner – no response
HRC Vice Chair Creighton Comer – no response
HRC Vice Chair Willie G. Comer, Jr. – no response
HRC Vice Chair Robin McClain – no response
HRC Vice Chair Diamond Walker – no response
HRC Vice Chair Brian Alexander-Ward – no response
Citizen Review Subcommittee Chair Emily Rodriguez – has exchanged many lengthy emails with me about how the CRS operates, seemed to be under the impression that the CRS would review my case
CRS Vice Chair Demario Turner – no response
CRS Vice Chair Alexandra Harmon-Threatt – no response
CRS Vice Chair Mike Ingram – no response until 2/5/2019, which he asked me if any officials had responded to my letter
CRS Vice Chair Melissa Keeble – no response
Given the broad lack of response, it did not seem to me, or anyone else, that the issue was of significance.
After my announcement to speak at the March 26 council meeting, and subsequent showing, I finally received a response from Chief Cobb, Mayor Feinen, and other council members.
In regards to Chief Cobb’s indication that this is an ongoing investigation of (apparently) indeterminate length, here is an exact quote from my exchange with Deputy Chief Tod Myers on 3/22/2019: “The review is complete. The chief just needs to review it and give his ok.” When I asked Tod Myers and Chief Cobb for a copy of that that review, all of a sudden it was not complete. Cobb and Myers both still refuse to give me a copy of the review. I strongly suggest the Mayor and Council obtain a copy of the original review, if only to learn how an internal review process changes after gaining notoriety.
At the March 26 meeting, Chief Cobb said, “Prior to December 20th 2018, Champaign Police Department had not received a complaint from Mr. Hansen related to this incident.” Actually, I’d contacted the CPD repeatedly in the months and years after my arrest. However, I had not contacted Chief Cobb directly until 12/20/2018.
At the meeting, Council Member Beck expressed an interest in having a productive dialogue. I would be thrilled! I don’t know how to engage with any of you aside from sending emails and showing up to the council meetings. Please let me know what else I should be doing.
Kind Regards,
Christopher Hansen”
3-24-2019
Recent discussions on Reddit regarding CorruptCU
Discussion upon release of open letter in December 2018: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/a7zlww/urbana_resident_and_uiuc_alum_persecuted_by/
Sheriff Heuerman’s response after 2 months: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/aswpod/champaign_county_sheriff_heuerman_responds_to/
Response by City Council member Clarissa Fourman after Tamara Buch and Kenton Elmore spoke during audience participation about Christopher Hansen’s experience: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/ae73dw/city_council_member_on_corruptcu_claims_cry_me_a/
Champaign City Attorney Laura J. Hall argues CorruptCU is of little public interest, refers to concerned citizens as “trolls”: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/b4o484/champaign_city_attorney_laura_j_hall_argues/
AMA by Christopher Hansen: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/arshb0/i_authored_corruptcucom_ask_me_anything/
Call to action – CorruptCU Facebook group: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/b3xjwx/corruptcu_what_we_can_do/ https://www.facebook.com/groups/383582942479754/
Christopher Hansen speaks at Champaign City Council meeting: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/b3hamb/christopher_hansen_of_corruptcu_speaks_at/
Ben Chapman of Mohamet Daily discusses how mugshots can harm lives: https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/b2k9q5/a_long_story_in_todays_mahomet_daily_discussing/https://www.mahometdaily.com/mugshots-sometimes-harm-local-lives/
A letter to Champaign Police Chief Cobb (after waiting close to 3 months for a reply): https://www.reddit.com/r/UIUC/comments/b4paa9/a_letter_to_champaign_police_chief_cobb_from/
1-2-2019
A handful of public officials have replied to my letter expressing their intent to look into this further, however nothing substantive has yet come about just yet.
Shortly after my original letter was posted, I made a few alterations. If you read the original letter, then you may be interested in reviewing these changes:
In a couple places in my letter, I changed “friends” to “Facebook friends”. Although even in these cases, there is evidence that associations between parties are more than simply “Facebook friends”, it is still not entirely clear how strong the associations are, so I defaulted to the more precise statement.
For various reasons, I removed the names of the businesses that failed to provide security footage, as well as the name of the facility manager and owner. However, I have checked and rechecked that paragraph and the sequence of events is accurate as described. UPDATE: For various reasons, I replaced the names of the businesses that failed to provide security footage.
The following sentences have been updated to remove the suggestion of criminal activity as a statement of fact:
“This person concealed the truth, and her actions put a completely innocent person in jail, destroying his reputation.”
“Why would the Champaign Police Department arrest, jail, charge, and indict me based on no evidence whatsoever, but refuse to even investigate the obvious deceit of Jennifer Ryan, wherein a myriad of damning evidence already existed?”
“I would like to know to what extent Ryan was able to manipulate the investigation using her connections with the mayor, the police, and the businesses that failed to produce evidence.”
“Rice couldn’t understand why a proper investigation into Jennifer Ryan’s false report hadn’t been performed.”
The bulleted section titled “No Robber” has been altered to reflect more precisely what the video evidence indicates. This section was previously titled “No Robber, Anywhere, Ever” but such a claim would require omniscience, so I changed it simply to “No Robber”. In my original letter, I also wrote that there was no person “matching the description of her attacker”, however it is likely that at one time or another someone with jeans and a black t-shirt would have passed through. The main point of the paragraph is unchanged: Investigator Guess reviewed the footage and could not find any suspect fleeing with a purse as described by my accuser. Steve Guess played the footage for me and I took notes and drew sketches. Unfortunately, I do not own this video, as the Public Defender’s Office has refused to let me have a copy of my own case file.
In my original letter, I remarked that one of the officers said “I swear to God I’m gonna taze you”. This quote is in my hand-written notes that I made as soon as I got home from jail. However, this statement cannot be deciphered on the dash-cam audio. There are quite a few things that cannot be heard on the audio, including my own voice. At some point I thought I could decipher this quote, but it is so garbled and after some period of time I got paranoid about including the quote in my letter, since it seems it cannot be verified, so I took it out. One thing that I find remarkable about this: I spoke about this exact quote/threat with Public Defender Janie Miller-Jones. I delivered to quote to Jones exactly as written, and she was very quick to just dismiss it and say something along the lines of, “I’m sure he meant that if you didn’t comply, he would taze you.”
I may have made a number of minor word changes throughout the letter which I did not document, and I fixed a few spelling/spacing errors as well.