By Matt
Agorist
Joliet, IL — Joliet police Sgt. Javier Esqueda is a good cop.
We can say this with certainty because he proved it by refusing to
stay silent about the alleged criminal acts of his fellow cops and
risked his career to shine light into darkness. He watched a video
of his fellow officers appear to suffocate a man until he died and
decided that enough was enough.
For exposing the crimes of his fellow cops, Esqueda was arrested
this week and charged with official misconduct for the “crime”
of exposing criminal activity within his own department.
The complaint states that on June 10, Esqueda “knowingly
performed an act with (sic) he knew to be forbidden by law to
perform in that he used the laptop in his Joliet Police Department
squad car while not on duty to access the Joliet Police Department
WatchGuard system to view a video file which was locked and he did
so while in a motor vehicle which passed through Kendall County.
All of the foregoing occurred in Kendall County, Illinois.”
Joliet Police Chief Al Roechner orchestrated criminal charges
against Esqueda after he brought shame on the department in July
for leaking the video.
“What is most sad about this is that this is a clear message
from Chief Roechner to the frontline officers that should they see
actions they believe are misconduct by fellow officers, they must
keep their mouths shut and stay quiet or they will be charged with
a felony,” Esqueda’s lawyer Jeff Tomczak told Patch this week.
He then predicted that Esqueda will get a goldmine – from the
taxpayers of Joliet and Illinois — as a result of a future
federal lawsuit that Esqueda is now certain to file against the
city of Joliet and the Joliet Police Department of Chief Roechner,
according to Patch.
Because prosecutors in Esqueda’s county had nothing on which
to charge the officer, Tomczak says the chief went to a neighboring
county to seek out a favor in charging the good cop.
“I also have no doubt in my mind that these charges were
shopped around and Will County prosecutors declined, as they
should, so they went shopping in Kendall County and were able to
find a prosecutor to file these bad charges.”
“I am anticipating winning and I am anticipating this case
ends with a big fat federal judgment against the city of Joliet and
every officer involved in these charges,” Tomczak assured Joliet
Patch.
The idea that an officer, who did his job and exposed criminals
to hold them accountable, would subsequently be arrested for this
heroic act, speaks to the nature of the thing blue line. When
examining the case Esqueda exposed, the fact that this is being
covered up is horrifying.
As TFTP previously reported,
his name was Eric Lurry.
On January 29, police targeted Lurry because they suspected him
of having a substance deemed illegal by the state.
According to
CBS 2, Nicole Lurry said her husband had just finished getting
his license to be a barber, and was enrolled in school to become an
instructor at the barber school. But in late January, the 37 year
old – who had served time before for drugs – got arrested
again.
Become an Activist Post Patron for $1 per month at Patreon.
When police arrested Lurry, they put him in the back of a squad
car and suspected him of putting drugs in his mouth. Because the
state claims the right to kidnap, cage, beat, and kill people over
arbitrary substances, when Lurry was put in the back of the
car, he was essentially tortured.
In an attempt to get Lurry to spit out the drugs, police held
his nose closed while shoving a baton in his mouth and slapping
him. This torture went on for nearly two entire minutes until Lurry
fell unconscious and eventually died.
“He was suffocating,” Sgt. Esqueda said. “In my opinion,
anybody would suffocate in that situation.”
For five months, the department kept the video secret while
clearing the cops involved. Nicole Lurry never knew of the
video’s existence until Esqueda blew the whistle after he came
across it.
Adding to the egregious act of hiding such damning evidence is
the fact that the audio had been turned off after the officers were
seen slapping Lurry.
“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 said.
“So there was a deliberate, initial act to turn off the audio
or get rid of the audio?” CBS 2 reporters asked Sgt. Esqueda.
“There had to be. There’s no way that can happen,” he
said.
If all cops had this resolve, America would be in a much better
place than where we currently find ourselves.
Surprisingly enough, Esqueda has the support of the Black Police
Officers Association, which includes about 30 officers and
supervisors of all races.
“He’s a member, and we’re going to back him,” said Dave
Jackson, president of his department’s Black Police Officers
Association.
“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.
“Without Sgt. Esqueda drawing attention to this death to city
officials, this in-custody death may still be pending,” Jackson
said, according to
Patch.
Esqueda told reporters that he leaked the video because he
wanted to prove that not all cops are bad.
“In light of everything that’s’ been happening – you
know George Floyd really had a lot of us police officers. When we
saw that video, a lot of us cried. People don’t believe that. But
the thing is, there are a lot of good officers out of 750,000. Not
everybody is a bad cop. Most cops that I know were upset by George
Floyd,” he said.
Obviously not�all cops are bad people. However, if we look at
Esqueda’s case, all the officers involved in Lurry’s death, the
supervisors, the chief, literally everyone but Esqueda was willing
to look the other way. This would imply that all the cops in the
Joliet police department are bad — except for Esqueda.
Even officials outside the police department whose
“investigation†found that depriving Lurry of air for nearly
two minutes played no role in his death.
The entire 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 Lurry’s
death, highlighting the systemic and corrupt code of silence.
And now, the only man arrested in Lurry’s death is the one who
exposed it.
Source:
The Free Thought Project
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and
former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior
experience gives him unique insight into the world of government
corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an
independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on
mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at
Large at the Free Thought Project. Follow @MattAgorist on
Twitter, Steemit, and now on Minds.
Subscribe
to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Send
resources to the front lines of peace and freedom HERE! Follow us on
SoMee,
HIVE, Parler,
Flote, Minds, and Twitter.
Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming!
Get a free issue of Counter
Markets today.
Brave Cop Arrested for Exposing Officers Suffocating Man, Shoving
Baton in His Mouth Until He Died
