On January 25^th, 2022, the City of Danville, Illinois supplied Check CU with a police complaint form that quite clearly violates state law.

The form contains an affidavit page that requires the complainant to sign a sworn statement and have it notarized.  A review of recently submitted complaints indicates that the Danville Police Department was invoking this affidavit requirement as recently as late October, 2021.

The Uniform Peace Officers’ Disciplinary Act explicitly states that police complaint forms cannot have any type of “sworn affidavit” requirement:

(50 ILCS 725/3.8) (b) It shall not be a requirement for a person filing a complaint against a sworn peace officer to have the complaint supported by a sworn affidavit or any other legal documentation.

The Danville Police Complaint form is also accompanied by a very unusual form for release of personal/private information by the complainant:

“I, _____________ __, do hereby authorize a review and full disclosure of all records concerning myself to the Human Relations Department of the City of Danville, Danville, Illinois, whether the said records are of a public, private or confidential nature.

The intent of this authorization is to give my consent for full and complete disclosure of records of law enforcement agencies; medical treatment, including hospitals, clinics and private practitioners.”

The form goes on to ask for personal details such as date of birth and social security number.   This is the only police complaint form Check CU has observed which asks for such details.  The forms are also accompanied by two pages of procedures which seem to make providing these personal details a requirement of the complaint process:

§ 95.50 PROCEDURES FOR THE HUMAN RELATIONS DIRECTOR RELATING TO COMPLAINTS OF ALLEGED EMPLOYEE MISCONDUCT.

(A) A citizen may file a complaint concerning alleged misconduct of any City employee with the Director. No complaint may be filed more than 30 days after the occurrence of the incident.

• A complaint form shall be completed by the person filing the complaint providing as much detail as possible, which shall include, but not necessarily be limited to, the following:
• Name, date of birth, social security number, address and telephone number of the complainant

This requirement does not appear to be as conspicuously unlawful as the affidavit portion of the complaint form, but it certainly seems to violate the spirit of the law.  According to the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, the state law “allows for anonymous complaints against officers, without a sworn affidavit”.  It would not follow that a police department could force complainants to supply a myriad of personal information if the law allows for complaints that can be submitted anonymously. 

The Danville Police Complaint forms and procedures/requirements can be viewed here (click image for full 6-page PDF):