Hosey: Talking back so they can hear it publicly

Just in case anyone was wondering, Joliet City Councilman Joe Clement staunchly supports the police department. He went ahead and said so, publicly and everything.

“I spoke to, over the last couple weeks, some of the officers at the police department,” Clement explained near the end of the last city council meeting.

“You know, it’s a tough job in this day and age, it’s always been a tough job, now more than ever in the climate,” he said. “They’re just concerned that the council or maybe the city as a whole may not have their back. And I assured them I do and I think they just need to hear it publicly. And I wanted to publicly say I have their back.”

And why wouldn’t he have their back? After all, before he won a seat on the city council, Clement was a police officer himself. It just makes sense that Clement would support the police, that he would have their back, unless for some reason he decided to do something like lie about one of them drinking on the job, which he did a couple years ago, according to former Police Chief Al Roechner, which doesn’t seem to be a very back having thing for someone to do at all.

Clement got in some trouble for this and lost 25 days pay, but things worked out for him because former interim City Manager Jim Hock had his back and rescinded the discipline.

At the same meeting last week, Mayor Bob O’Dekirk said he agreed with Clement’s sentiments. And he too undoubtedly supports the police, except for that time he said the department was in a state of “nonstop chaos,” or when he announced without explanation that the chief of police was the subject of a mysterious investigation, the results of which have yet to be made public more than a year later. Oh, and also when he lied about the same police officer drinking on duty as Clement did, according to Roechner.

But other than for that small handful of occasions, O’Dekirk surely has the back of the entire police department, which is only to be expected, since he, just like Clement, was also once a police officer.

So it was good to hear Clement say that he had the backs of the police and that O’Dekirk agreed with him. But for all that, it’s nothing more than talk.

Fortunately, there’s a guy like Hock, who showed he had Clement’s back by rescinding his suspension and letting him get paid. And Clement was not the only one whose back Hock had, as the former interim city manager reduced the 12 day suspension of another officer, John Perri, to a written reprimand as well.

If you think that’s impressive, it’s nothing compared to the unparalleled display of back having Hock’s replacement, Current City Manager Jim Capparelli, exhibited when Officer David Blackmore was recommended for termination.

Blackmore falsified an accident report, lied about an on-duty injury and attempted to fraudulently collect workman’s comp, according to a law firm hired by the city to review his case.

This sounded bad for Blackmore and it looked like he might lose his job, but Capparelli stepped in and kept him around.

Capparelli hasn’t said much about why he did this, other than he felt firing Blackmore was “not warranted.” And Capparelli probably should say something, so Blackmore can hear publicly that he has his back.

• Joe Hosey is the editor of The Herald-News. You can reach him at 815-280-4094, at jhosey@shawmedia.com or on Twitter @JoeHosey.