Research by Check CU has revealed what can only be described as the felony destruction of public records by Urbana Police Officers.
Throughout 2020, amidst the nationwide demands for police reform, Urbana, Illinois residents took up similar causes with their local Police Department and their Civilian Police Review Board (CPRB). In June of 2020, a number of residents submitted a seven page petition to the CPRB detailing requests for reforms to the complaint review process.
The Board members and Urbana City staff accepted the petition as a guiding document for improving the CPRB, and one of the provisions that the Board members pushed for was a portal for all past and ongoing police complaints, including tools to track behavior patterns by certain officers.
Though the intent and goals of the Board members and the public were crystal clear, City Administrator Carol Mitten announced at the November 18th, 2020 CPRB meeting that the Urbana Police Department had destroyed all complaints prior to 2012.
This news came as a surprise to the CPRB members, who were not consulted or previously made aware that the Police Department was planning to destroy past complaints. CPRB member Tony Allegretti raised the issue with Carol Mitten:
Allegretti: “Carol, the original complaints you said are gone before 2012, or is there a copy or a digital copy?”
Mitten: “No, they’ve been disposed of according to records retention rules.”
Allegretti: “Well right, you don’t have to keep them past seven years but it doesn’t mean you have to destroy them.”
Mitten: “No, I understand, but they’re gone.”
Allegretti: “There was no scan made of them or anything of that nature?”
Mitten: “I was told that they’ve been disposed of, and when we get rid of paper records we can also simultaneously get rid of the digital records as well.”
Mitten indicated that the complaints had been destroyed prior to her becoming City Administrator in 2018. A video of Mitten’s announcement and the exchange that followed is provided here:
In Illinois, all records must be kept and maintained by a public body until they have received permission from the Local Records Commission to dispose of them. It is a crime to tamper with or destroy any records until a Records Disposal Certificate for those specific records has been approved.
Check CU attempted to locate the records disposal certificate for the police complaints that Carol Mitten said had already been destroyed. A certificate was located, but it is dated March 9th, 2021 and the Records Commission indicated that police complaints could not be destroyed until after May 9th, 2021 – nearly six months after Mitten said the records had already been destroyed.
The Records Disposal Certificate seeking permission to destroy complaints against police officers from 1973 to 2012 was submitted and signed by Urbana Police Sergeant Elizabeth “Betsy” Alfonso – it is provided below.
Tampering with public records is covered under 720 ILCS 5/32-8 and 50 ILCS 205/4. Any person who knowingly and without lawful authority alters, destroys, defaces, removes or conceals any public record commits a Class 4 felony.
It is an inevitable conclusion that the Urbana Police Department unlawfully destroyed the police complaint records, or concealed the existence of the police complaint records, or both.
Check CU is performing further research to attempt to determine who destroyed the police complaints and when.
