Court rules in favor of city in case of terminated Yorkville police officer

A Kendall County court ruled in favor of the City of Yorkville to not reinstate a former city police sergeant fired in 2018 for on-the-job misconduct.

The city sued the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police over a arbitrator's call to reinstate Sgt. Sarah Klingel despite repeated violations of police policy. Siding with the city, 23rd Circuit Court Judge Stephen Krentz ordered to vacate the arbitrator's decision in a ruling given Friday, Dec. 11.

The civil suit stems from the police department's decision to fire Klingel, a former police supervisor, due to a Sept. 14, 2017 incident where an officer told a resident to kill themselves.

Klingel and two other officers had responded to reports of a domestic incident at the home of Tad Johnson, 44, and his mother, Charlene Johnson, 72, in the 2500 block of Overlook Court.

Police dash camera footage showed Yorkville Police Officer Jeffrey Johnson yelling at Tad Johnson to “finish [himself] off” while Tad Johnson strangled himself in front of the house window after Tad and Charlene Johnson refused to open the door for police officers.

Both Tad and Charlene Johnson initially were arrested for resisting a police officer and Tad Johnson also was charged with disorderly conduct. In the cases, Krentz found Tad Johnson not guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting a peace officer and Charlene Johnson not guilty of resisting a peace officer during a July 11, 2018 bench trial. The city council later approved an agreement to settle the federal case Tad Johnson and Charlene Johnson vs. City of Yorkville during a May 28, 2019 meeting.

The arbitrator who reinstated Klingel nonetheless found that she had committed a litany of misconduct during the Johnson incident, per court documents.

In his findings, the arbitrator said Klingel had arrested someone without justification, interfered with an investigation, disobeyed the Chief of Police, allowed a subordinate officer "to use profanity and racially charged language," instructed a subordinate officer to enter a home without a warrant or probable case and excessively tased a resident.

Following the incident, Klingel was fired from the police department, Officer Johnson was suspended and Officer Christopher Hayes was disciplined in early August 2018. Officer Johnson, who told Johnson to kill himself, remains employed by the Yorkville police department.

The Illinois Fraternal Order of Police then filed a grievance saying the city did not have just cause to fire Klingel. The arbitrator examined the issue, and despite Klingel's misconduct, reinstated her with a 120-day suspension and back-pay. The city then sued to vacate Klingel's reinstatement - a lawsuit it won on Friday.

In his ruling, Judge Krentz stressed that "a court will not disturb the arbitrator's construction of a collective bargaining agreement simply because its interpretation differs from that of the arbitrator. Yet Krentz ultimately decided the arbitrator's decision violated "'an established public policy'" that "unquestionably exists in promoting effective law enforcement.'"

"The Arbitrator's decision to reinstate the officer, despite the decision of the Chief of Police that termination was warranted, sends a message to the public that police departments must continue to employ officers guilty of misconduct, even when they interfere with the resulting investigation," Judge Krentz wrote. "The public deserves to have confidence that our police officers will investigate their own misconduct to the same extent they investigate the misconduct of others."