Termination hearing for Joliet police officer sued over 2024 chase moved to next month

A termination hearing for a Joliet police officer facing three lawsuits over a chase that resulted in a crash last year has been moved to February.

The hearing for Officer Alfonso Sanchez was expected to begin at 5 p.m. on Monday for the city’s Board of Fire and Police Commissioners. The agenda for the meeting was not posted on the city’s website until Monday afternoon.

Board Chairman Quinn Adamowski was absent from the meeting because he was on a Rock Island Line Metra train that was involved in a crash with a vehicle in Robbins.

“Unfortunately, the chairman was on a train that hit a car. An unforeseeable accident,” said Herb Lande, a board commissioner.

Todd Lenzie, the city’s chief attorney, told the board that attorneys for both sides of the Sanchez case agreed to move the hearing to a later date so “all members of the board can be here.”

The hearing for Sanchez was pushed to Feb. 12.

Sanchez has been named as a defendant in three lawsuits over a high-speed pursuit on Jan. 7, 2024, that led to a vehicle driven by Mohammad Nakhleh, 32, of Plainfield, to collide with another vehicle occupied by two people.

Nakhleh is one of the three plaintiffs suing Sanchez. Nakhleh is also facing an aggravated fleeing charge over the incident.

Following an internal affairs investigation of the incident, Joliet Police Chief William Evans issued Sanchez a 75-day suspension notice.

Lande apologized to a large crowd of people who attended the meeting on Monday for Sanchez.

“We don’t take this lightly,” Lande said.

At the Dec. 9 board meeting, Evans told the commissioners that he was filing charges against Sanchez for alleged violations of the police department’s general orders and he was seeking to fire Sanchez.

Lenzie told the board that Sanchez’s firing is in their discretion.

“The board may sustain the action of the chief, reverse it with instructions, suspend the police officer [or] firefighter for a period of not more than 90 calendar days, or discharge the police officer. That’s your option. It’s on the police department to sustain its burden,” Lenzie said.

Adamowski had asked Lenzie at the Dec. 9 meeting whether the presentation of evidence and testimony in Sanchez’s case has to be a public discussion.

“It’s a board hearing that can be done in closed session,” Lenzie said.

It’s rare for the Board of Fire and Police Commissioners to hold a hearing over disciplinary issues involving a police officer.

Officers facing discipline can take their case to an arbitrator or to the board for reduced penalties or reversals of the discipline.

Officers can also reach disciplinary settlement agreements with the city.

A report on a civil investigation of the Joliet Police Department from the Illinois Attorney General’s Office described those settlement agreements as a “key way in which the city can override the department’s disciplinary decisions.”

During an intense exchange with Lande in 2019, retired Joliet Police Sgt. Pat Cardwell told the board there “hasn’t been any discipline on any of your agendas for fire and police board in 20 years.”