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Both Allen’s and Jackson’s suits are ongoing, as is a suit filed by Cassandra Socha, an officer who alleges that fellow officers stole private, explicit photos from her personal cell phone and shared them around the department. Now, the department is facing at least 12 separate federal lawsuits, including numerous excessive-force complaints, at least one wrongful-death lawsuit, and four cases filed by current or former officers. “But if a Black officer commits a small infraction, they blow it all the way out.”
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“In Joliet, white guys can just about commit murder and nothing happens to them,” Allen told The Appeal this month. In November 2019, another Black officer, David Jackson, sued the department in federal court, claiming that he was retaliated against for defending Allen in interviews with local media. In his federal complaint, Allen says the Joliet police tried to fire him for complaining about, among other things, white officers pepper spraying Black children and making fun of Black people while on duty. He retired the following year after three decades on the force. In 2018, Allen sued the department in federal court for race discrimination. Around the same time, the department, which patrols a small city about an hour southwest of Chicago, was placed under a citywide affirmative action plan demanding the hiring of more Black officers.īut Allen didn’t expect that the battle to reform the department would take decades-or involve him personally.Īs he rose through the ranks, Allen watched the department endure multiple scandals, including officers accused of using racial slurs and allegedly harassing a Black female officer. When Lionel Allen joined the Joliet Police Department in Illinois in 1989, he knew that it had a reputation for being hostile to Black officers.