A Champaign County judge denied an attempt by the Village of Rantoul last month to have a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit dismissed. 

The hearing took place on June 21^st at the Champaign County Courthouse under Judge Jason Bohm.  Rantoul Village Attorney David Wesner attended in person, and attorney for the plaintiff attended remotely.

The plaintiff in this case is Check CU Founder Christopher Hansen, and he is represented by attorney Josh Loevy of the law firm Loevy & Loevy.

The FOIA request which prompted the lawsuit sought copies of complaints that had been submitted against Rantoul Police officers in 2019, 2020, and 2021.  Wesner denied the request, arguing that police complaint records are not subject to FOIA.  Wesner later denied another FOIA request for 2010-2018 police complaints.

One of Wesner’s court filings in March of 2022 prompted FOIA expert Josh Loevy to write in his response that “Rantoul Fundamentally Misunderstands the Premise of FOIA Cases”.

At the hearing, Wesner argued that police complaints were not subject to FOIA because they were related to “a public body’s adjudication of employee grievances or disciplinary cases”.  He also argued that complaint registers or logs were exempt. 

Rantoul’s posture on police complaints differs from perhaps every other public body in Illinois.  Check CU has never encountered a locality that has claimed police complaints can be kept secret.

Wesner reasoned that the release of police complaints could mean that unfounded complaints are released to the public.  Wesner created a narrative for Judge Bohm of an “arch enemy” who submits “thousands of complaints” against an officer, and explained that the police department had a right to conceal those records.

Wesner further argued that the release of any portion of a police complaint, or releasing a complaint log, would reveal the fact that the complaint exists. Therefore, the police department had a right to conceal all evidence that a complaint had ever been filed against an officer.

Loevy argued that exposing misconduct is “at the very core of FOIA” and that “this point of law has be undisputed since Kalven”. 

Loevy was referring to a 2014 appellate court decision in Kalven v. City of Chicago.  In that case, a reporter in the midst of publishing articles on alleged police misconduct had requested police complaints from the Chicago Police Department in 2009.  Chicago denied the records but the denial was eventually overturned by the courts after Kalven filed a lawsuit.

The Kalven v. Chicago case represents a nearly identical scenario as Hansen v. Rantoul, and it directly addresses and rejects Wesner’s arguments.  Judge Justice Connors wrote in the court’s opinion that prior to 2010 when the Kalven lawsuit was filed, “For 30 years [the FOIA law] existed in nearly identical form and was never interpreted to exempt a public body’s investigations into citizen complaints of police misconduct.” 

In response, Wesner said that the Kalven decision applied to Chicago police complaints, but should not apply to the rest of Illinois. 

By all appearances, Rantoul and their Village Attorney David Wesner intend to overturn a cornerstone of FOIA that has stood intact for over four decades.  If successful, police departments all over the state could begin denying police misconduct records, as well as concealing any evidence that the misconduct complaints ever existed.

Judge Bohm rejected Rantoul’s motion to dismiss.  Since Rantoul continues to refuse to produce records of police alleged police misconduct, the taxpayers will continue to foot the bill at future court hearings until the issue is resolved.