Jamie Munks
The State Journal-Register
After a lengthy investigation into the shredding of Springfield Police Department internal affairs documents determined that no “provable crime” was committed, little is known about how special prosecutors reached that conclusion.
The state’s attorneys appellate prosecutor’s office issued a one-page, five-paragraph news release Wednesday evening saying that it was not pursuing criminal charges but that a review of the evidence gathered by Illinois State Police revealed conduct that was “embarrassingly incompetent.” With the blessing of the city’s top attorney, Springfield police destroyed documents that were the subject of a Freedom of Information Act request from Calvin Christian III.
“Would everyone probably like to know more? Sure,” said Springfield attorney Don Craven, an expert in open-records law who has represented Christian. “But it’s not abnormal to maintain some secrecy, privacy, on criminal investigations.”
The state police investigation, which lasted more than a year, centered on the destruction of police internal affairs files after four years rather than the previously mandated five — made possible by an agreement reached between then-Police Chief Robert Williams and the police union and signed off on by Mark Cullen, who at the time was the city’s corporation counsel. The documents that were destroyed included those Christian had requested.
Williams abruptly retired and Cullen resigned in the aftermath of the scandal.
Wednesday’s release didn’t elaborate on why what was characterized as “an epicenter of legal irresponsibility, indifference and ineptitude” didn’t amount to a provable crime.
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Since the file shredding, which occurred in April 2013 after Christian filed a request for internal affairs files — including those of now-retired Deputy Chief Cliff Buscher, which contained information about a 2008 incident during which he fired his service weapon while drunk on a family fishing trip in Missouri with other police officials — aldermen have been seeking more details about what happened.
Buscher, who was then a police commander, eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor and was demoted to the rank of lieutenant before working his way up to deputy chief.
When the city settled a shredding lawsuit with Christian for more than $100,000, aldermen had “enough information, including depositions and emails, to form judgments as to what went on and why,” Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin wrote in an email.
Nevertheless, McMenamin said the shredding incident “represented significant mistakes of judgment by top staff at city hall” that ultimately cost taxpayers and disrupted city government.
“It called for swift and severe administrative discipline, which never took place,” McMenamin said. “This represented a lack of command and control at the top.”
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 