Friday, November 6, 2015

Joe Gliniewicz: Illinois: Daily Beast on the "hero" cop who stole thousands of dollars from his own department's youth auxillary program and then used his experience in staging crimes scenes for police training programs to fake his own murder - "a carefully staged suicide" - and almost managed to carry it off. (Must Read. HL);

 "A stunning announcement from the Fox Lake, Illinois, police department claims the town’s hero was secretly leading a life of crime...Investigators never found the men suspected of killing Lt. “GI Joe” Gliniewicz. Not for lack of effort, not for lack of evidence, and not for enough tips. The men didn’t exist. The three vaguely described suspects, “two male white, one male black,” were apparently a product of Gliniewicz’s imagination, ginned up to make himself go out like a hero. Fox Lake police on Wednesday said Gliniewicz’s death was a “carefully staged suicide.” Gliniewicz had been stealing and laundering thousands of dollars from the police department’s youth auxiliary program for personal purchases, the department said. The purchases included gym memberships, porn websites, and mortgage payments..........As a leader in the police “explorer” program, Gliniewicz had extensive experience mocking up crime scenes to train aspiring cops, and officials say he used those skills to throw police off the trail of his deception......... Despite the extensive investigation, there remain serious questions that need to be answered in Fox Lake. Police made clear Wednesday that it was known fairly early that no one had touched Gliniewicz’s gun other than GI Joe himself. That, combined with the knowledge that the fatal bullet came from Gliniewicz’s own gun should have been enough to confirm a suicide weeks ago. But it apparently wasn’t. Coroner Thomas Rudd’s decision to inform the press that Gliniewicz’s gun was the murder weapon on Oct. 1 angered police. Filenko dressed down Rudd, telling any media outlet that would listen how the medical examiner’s release of the only pertinent information to come out since Gliniewicz died had put the entire investigation “in jeopardy.”  Filenko (George Filenko commander of the Lake County Major Crimes Task Force), didn’t say how Rudd’s actions had done so at today’s press conference. As far as what will happen to the DNA samples “randomly” collected from hundreds of Fox Lake residents, or how many there even are, Filenko said, “I don’t know.” Throughout it all, Filenko and others have insisted that they kept everything on the table, that nothing was discounted even as the mayor of Fox Lake called Gliniewicz’s death the “heinous murder of a police officer.” All for a man who allegedly stole from his own department and the town that supported it, then deceived his fellow officers by concocting a fake emergency, and adding to his own family’s grief by tarnishing what had been a stellar career in law enforcement and a life of commitment to his loved ones until that day.In his wake, Gliniewicz left confusion, anger, and sadness—perhaps even more so now that we know more about the full breadth of his actions."

 http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/04/gi-joe-gliniewicz-stole-from-police-then-staged-his-own-suicide.html?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon

See related Daily Beast story  on why Fox newsers suddenly went quiet when their hero was revealed to be a fraudster. " It was a narrative perfectly suited for Fox News’s conservative commentariat. Too bad it was total bullshit. Three assailants allegedly shot and killed Lt. Joe Gliniewicz, a wholesome small-town cop and Army vet known locally as “GI Joe”; a 30-year veteran of the force; a married father of four; a local hero. His death had to be part of an ominous trend of societal menaces murdering law officers in cold blood, supposedly fueled by President Obama’s “anti-cop” rhetoric and the Black Lives Matter movement. Several Fox Newsers were quick to make that connection just as Fox Lake, Illinois, police set out to find the three perpetrators Gliniewicz mentioned over the radio just before he died."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/11/05/fox-newsers-suddenly-quiet-when-their-hero-cop-revealed-to-be-fraudster.html?via=newsletter&source=DDAfternoon