After Coroner “Embarrassed” Police Dept With Facts — They Had Him Arrested
Jack Burns
TheFreeThoughtProject.com
3/5/2017
The former coroner of Round Lake Park, Illinois has been arrested and charged with multiple felonies. According to the Chicago Tribune, “Former Lake County Coroner Thomas Rudd has been indicted on five felony counts of perjury, with authorities alleging he falsely claimed to have witnessed signatures on his election nominating petitions.” The story might seem just if weren’t for Round Lake Park, IL Police Department’s sordid past and current track record of alleged corruption, cover-ups, and scandals.
In 2016, ten of the thirteen police officers that comprise the small police department filed a civil rights lawsuit against the village and the department after learning the body cameras worn by officers at all times were allegedly capturing the officers in compromising situations which included a female officer using the bathroom, and others in intimate situations.
The lawsuit names the village, and the sheriff and his second-in-command as defendants. “The only two people with full administrative access to the video review system were Filenko and Deputy Chief Daniel Burch, who therefore knew about the unauthorized video, asserts the suit, which names both as defendants. Burch had also conducted the department’s initial two-hour training session on the cameras, showing officers how to start and stop the devices, advising officers to record almost all calls, both routine and emergency, including traffic stops and foot pursuits,” writes the Tribune.
One by one, as former Round Lake Park Police Officer Dominick Izzo told The Free Thought Project, Filenko then began to harass, intimidate, and threaten the officers whose names were listed as plaintiffs in the case. Chief Filenko supposedly made life so difficult for them, that many left the PD and moved to other precincts.
But it was the 48 Hours episode which chronicled Melissa Calusinski’s fight to prove her innocence which sent Izzo over the blue line of silence, transforming him into a whistleblower, an action which cost him his career and has now lead to the former coroner’s arrest.
Calusinski, a daycare worker in her 20’s, was charged with murder in the Jan. 14th, 2009 death off baby Ben Kingan who passed away while in her care. The state’s case against Calusinski argued Kingan was a healthy little boy when she violently slammed him on the ground, causing a skull fracture, which led to his death. After all, Calusinski confessed on video, even reenacting how she’d killed the little boy.
The Rest…HERE
