Jew World Order

Video of the encounter shows that Gilmore held his hands in the air and called her “ma’am.” She told him to put his hands on a car, and he did, but then she told him to empty his pockets. He hesitated and asked “Huh?” as he put his hands in his pockets. Kelly fired the Taser, and Gilmore shrieked and flailed his arms, though he avoided the weapon’s shock. He was charged with having a small amount of marijuana, but the charge was dropped, court records show. Gilmore’s lawsuit reaped $45,000, according to city records.

“He was Tased for doing exactly what she was telling him to do,” said his attorney, Basileios Foutris. “I’ve never seen that before.”

Kelly, now a lieutenant, declined to comment.

In 2010, a shooting investigation led to police chasing Michael Denson, a felon with a prior weapons conviction, records show. Video shows a running Denson dropping like a stone as an officer fires a Taser into his back.

Video shows Denson lifting his shoulders off the ground as two other officers arrive. The footage then shows Officer Aaron Murauskas, once a lineman on Lake Forest College’s football team, delivering a kick that Denson said hit his face. Then Murauskas stomped on the back of his head, the video shows.

In his report, Murauskas wrote that Denson appeared to be reaching for his waistband — where he could have had a gun — before the officer kicked him in the shoulder, not the face. Denson reached again for his waistband, Murauskas wrote, so he tried to stomp on his back but accidentally stomped on his head.

Police did not report finding any weapons on Denson after his arrest. Charges brought against Denson were dropped. Denson received a payout of $85,000, records show.

Murauskas now works for the University of Illinois at Chicago police. He told the Tribune his report was accurate.

“We’re allowed to make mistakes. You can’t lie about it,” he said.

Denson said the video shows he was kicked in the face, contrary to what Murauskas wrote in his report.

“If they’re lying about this, then why can’t they be lying about everything else?” Denson asked.

Robert Martinez’s family also won a settlement on behalf of his father, Jose, one of several people who died after run-ins with the city’s police.

Martinez said he’s unsure why a Waukegan officer used a Taser on his father.

“My dad was completely unarmed and shirtless,” the son said. “There wasn’t anything in the situation that would have caused them to take (those) measures,” the son said.

Jose Martinez, 53, had been drinking and was agitated on the night in 2010 when police came to a liquor store for a call about someone else panhandling, according to police reports. Officer Kenneth Piton later told investigators Martinez, shirtless, moved toward police aggressively and ignored commands to stop before grabbing a towel off his neck and hurling it.

Video shows the prongs from Piton’s Taser plunging into Martinez’s torso before he drops to the ground. After a second officer had trouble cuffing Martinez, Piton shocked him again, he reported.

A pathologist ruled Martinez died of a heart ailment but alcohol and the Taser were “significant” to his death. The year before, Taser International had advised police to avoid shocking people in the chest. The Taser probes hit Martinez in the “middle chest area” and abdomen, police wrote.

Piton could not be reached for comment. Martinez’s survivors settled for $225,000, according to city records.

“It’s still just as unfortunate and saddening as the day it happened,” Robert Martinez said.

Tribune open records requests turned up no record of discipline in the Gilmore, Denson or Martinez cases.

It’s hard to determine how often officers have been disciplined after abuse or misconduct allegations. Waukegan city officials have declined to comment, and officials sometimes turn down open records requests for disciplinary records, citing various exemptions.

Racial discord

Race is woven into the history of discord between Waukegan police and civilians, according to records and interviews.

Though it is impossible to pinpoint the race of every person who sued, the wide majority of payouts since 2006 went to blacks and Hispanics. The city was about 18 percent black in 2010, but roughly 20 of some 50 people who got payouts are African-American, according to a Tribune analysis of court and prison records, news archives and information from plaintiff’s lawyers.

The police, meanwhile, are disproportionately white. As of July, all 14 of the agency’s top command officers — lieutenants, commanders, the deputy chief and the chief — were white, according to state records. Though the department of about 150 had 27 Hispanic officers, the city had 10 black police, only one of whom had risen to sergeant, state records show.

“(The lack of diversity) is inherently a problem. … Departments should reflect the populations they serve,” said Jonathan Smith, who until recently led the U.S. Department of Justice section responsible for ensuring local police departments don’t violate people’s civil rights.

The department has had minority chiefs, including Bridges, now a judge. He noted there were black and Hispanic officers in top roles when he ran the agency in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

“I look over there now and say, ‘What happened?’” he said. “It needs to be fixed.”

Some of the city’s police have shown disdain for the people who pay for their service and protection, said officers who’ve left the agency recently. Larnell Farmer, an African-American Waukegan native who retired in 2012, said there were officers he didn’t want to accompany on calls because they were racist.

“That mentality needs to change,” he said. “You work for these people that you’re trying to arrest.”

Officers fare well after wrongful arrests

The city’s police played primary roles in six investigations that led to wrongful convictions; in a seventh case, a man sat in jail for five years awaiting trial before DNA triggered his release.

In five of the cases, officers who played key investigative roles became chief or deputy chief.

William Biang helped build a 1986 rape case against Bennie Starks. He was freed in 2006 — while Biang was chief — after DNA indicated his innocence. Biang, now an investigator for the Lake County state’s attorney’s office, declined to comment.

The late Artis Yancey, who was deputy chief and chief before retiring in 2010, helped take confessions from Gonzalez and another man. The two spent 35 years total in prison before being cleared by DNA.