Clik here to view.
Springfield, Illinois – Earlier today, the media received a press release from the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office regarding a Criminal Justice Reform Bill that was passed on Wednesday by Illinois Lawmakers.
Clik here to view.
The bill, which was a legislative priority of the Black legislative caucus, is supposed to be a wide criminal justice overhaul. The bill would create a better system for decertifying officers who engage in misconduct, removes protections for police officers in civil rights lawsuits and eliminate cash bail.
Another provision of this bill, which would directly affect the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Department, is the requirement of body cameras. Currently Sang. Co. Sheriff Deputies do not wear body cameras, but if this bill is signed into law, it would require all law enforcement agencies to have body cameras by 2025.
In a press release which was sent out by Sangamon County Sheriff Jack Campbell, in response to the criminal justice reform bill, it said:
By now you have heard of the devastating legislation passed in the middle of the night, that will negatively impact your safety. Law Enforcement agencies, many legislators and partners across the state, fought this legislation. Unfortunately, many uninformed legislators, after changing the bill number to cause confusion, adding more eviscerating language and leaving no time for review, rushed it to a vote. The sponsors were unable to answer simple questions about their own bill during testimony.
My message to our citizens is no matter how this plays out, whether Governor Pritzker signs this bill or not, the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Office will always be here for you. We have our frustrations with this, but we will be there for you, every shift, every day and night. Our courageous Correctional Officers, Court Security Officers, Civilians and Deputies, will do our jobs. We will provide the blanket of security we always have. We will maintain our professionalism as we fight back the tears and anger, recognizing there are legislators that do not care about your and our safety.
Thank you for the thousands of well wishes, social media posts and messages you have conveyed in support of us. They help during these difficult times. We will never forget your support.
Clik here to view.
We asked Sheriff Campbell which parts specifically of this bill is devastating? He said, “Most of it, and it’s 764 pages. As a whole, it makes us less safe.”
Clik here to view.
In addition to the Sheriff’s Department releasing the press release to the media, they decided to also publish the press release on their Facebook page. They received a lot of feedback – Hundreds of reactions, hundreds of shares and several comments. But, when you looked at the comments, only approximately 4 out of 40 comments were visible to the public. Odd!
Clik here to view.
Clik here to view.
We immediately sent over a Freedom of Information Request for the comments that were not visible to the public. We then sent the Sheriff a message asking about the hidden comments and also left a comment on the Sangamon County Sheriff’s Facebook status. Our comment said, “Hello, I am not sure who exactly is the person who is in charge of posting statuses on this account, but we’ve been told that comments are being hidden? Can you please preserve those comments and provide a copy of them to your records department because there is now a FOIA Request requesting them.”
Clik here to view.
Most people may not know, but Facebook has a feature that allows comments to be hidden. It’s supposed to be a beneficial feature for businesses, or in this case – a government agency, because if someone writes a negative comment, the business/government agency is able to hide the comment. When a comment is hidden, it will only be visible to the person who wrote the comment and no one else.
A few minutes later, after our FOIA Request and our request to preserve those hidden Facebook comments, all of those hidden comments were then visible again to the public.
Stay tuned to this article as we await for the Sheriff’s response.