On the Illinois Public Media’s Dialogue radio program from September 12, 2024, Urbana Police Chief Larry D. Boone said, “My philosophy is you hide nothing from the public. The days of that type of policing are gone by the way of the dodo bird.”
As we try to solve the recent problem of citizens’ reports of crime being initially disregarded by the Urbana Police Department, it’s critical we understand what happens during the initial intake of a report. The public has been given four different stories about the intake process related to an August 6 call to the Urbana Police Department (UPD) front desk to report an attempted child abduction. It was only after citizens expressed frustration on social media with the lack of police response that the police followed up on the initial report and made an arrest. Subsequent requests for information on the call intake procedure have not been satisfactorily answered.
In an August 15 Facebook post, UPD denied receiving the August 6 call. “The front desk staff at UPD did not field such a call.”
In an August 16 information release regarding the August 6 call, UPD stated, “At the time the incident was reported to the police department, the student’s mother was provided with inaccurate guidance regarding how to proceed. Specifically, she was informed that no further action could be taken due to the minimal description of the suspect and vehicle provided, as well as the amount of time that had elapsed since the incident had taken place.”
In a September 16 public statement at the Urbana City Council meeting about the August 6 call, UPD said, “Having listened to the audio, it’s very clear what the complainant is saying. It wasn’t due to any racial undertones of ignoring the complainant.” In fact, UPD confirmed that in the audio recording, the mother is clearly heard reporting to the call taker (twice) that a man tried to grab her daughter.
And finally in that same statement, UPD said, “The Police Services Representative misunderstood the call to be a vehicle accident, and did not forward it to an officer. [We] surmis[e] that it was due to doing multiple tasks at the time of the call.”
With this constant changing of the story about the phone call, it was deemed necessary to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for either the audio recording or a written transcript, with identifiers of the mother and daughter redacted.
This FOIA request was denied on September 24 with the following statement: “because disclosure . . . would create a substantial likelihood that a person will be deprived of a fair trial or an impartial hearing . . . it is the obligation of the [police] Department to ensure that it does not disseminate any information that could harm the prosecutorial process and/or taint any potential juror in the community by releasing information.”
You have got to be kidding. What have we been doing for the last 80 years?
Within hours of an arrest, any Urbana citizen could have their entire pending case blasted to the public before even an arraignment, let alone a trial. Police departments and state’s attorneys in Champaign County regularly go straight to the media and public with an arrested person’s name, mug shot, address, age, and, most importantly, the pertinent evidence of guilt that led to the arrest. This information has been put on display in the newspaper, on television and radio, and now on Facebook nearly every day for decades. The presumption of innocence is routinely obliterated in the media thanks to law enforcement’s pre-trial disclosures for “public consumption.”
This case of the August 6 attempted child abduction was ultimately handled in exactly the same way.
From the August 16 information release by the Urbana Police Department: “[The mother] reported that her child had reported that as she was walking home from the Urbana Middle School around 3:15 p.m. earlier that day, a white male with a brown beard with some grey, and wearing a baseball hat driving a white pickup truck, stopped his vehicle as the student was walking on the sidewalk. The driver then asked the student if she needed a ride. The student rejected the offer. The driver then asked the student if they wanted to make some money. The student again said ‘no!’ and fled on foot to a safe location. . . . Detectives were assigned to the case and have since been investigating the incident and looking for evidence. “The victim was interviewed by detectives and provided information that focused their efforts on a potential offender. On August 16, 2024 at approximately 10:07 p.m., Urbana Police Department detectives arrested Hunter W. Simmons, a 34-year-old Seymour man for one count of luring a minor and one count of indecent solicitation of a minor. Simmons was transported to the Champaign County Satellite Jail and left in the custody of corrections staff.”
At the August 19 Urbana City Council meeting it was said, “On Friday, myself and staff members met with the concerned citizen and family and gained valuable information that led to an arrest of the individual that attempted to accost this young lady.”
The August 19 edition of the News-Gazette used the headline “Seymour sex offender set to be charged for trying to lure child into his car.” This news article for “public consumption” said, in part, “A registered sex offender from Seymour is set to be arraigned today on the charge that he attempted to lure an 11-year-old into his car who was walking home from a local middle school earlier this month.
“Hunter Simmons, 34, will be charged with one count of child abduction and faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted of the Class 2 felony because the alleged crime took place near a school and Simmons was on probation for a previous indecent solicitation of a child conviction.
“During the investigation, the child provided Urbana police investigators with her phone because she had been recording herself as she was walking. The video showed the suspect vehicle crossing the child’s path multiple times.
“The video also contained audio of the suspect soliciting the child, asking her if she needed a ride and if she wanted to make some money. Investigators were able to locate the vehicle’s license plate on the video. The license plate number was allegedly registered to Simmons.
“Police then located Simmons at his residence in Seymour and took him into custody late Friday evening. After waiving his Miranda rights, Simmons allegedly admitted that he saw the child walking in the area and that he intended to pay her money in exchange for oral sex.
“Simmons initially claimed he thought she was 19 or 20, but later admitted he thought she may have been 16, Rietz said.”
Can we still presume Hunter Simmons is innocent after reading this article? Or has a potential jury been tainted now?
We can play hide and seek with the contents of the August 6 phone call for a while.
We can wait until Mr. Simmons’ case has been rendered a verdict if that’s now become our new sudden concern.
Yet Mr. Simmons’ case is not the only issue here, there is still the issue of the mishandled report. It is ironic that the Urbana Police Department told the public at the August 19 council meeting that, when it comes to ongoing investigations of police behavior, “there is very limited information that we can provide.”
But let this article serve notice to the Urbana Police Department: we’ll be coming back for the audio recording or an accurate written transcript of that August 6 call to the UPD front desk, so please don’t let anything come up missing. In this case the botched response to the initial call did not lead to a tragedy, but the public deserves to know how this failure to respond occurred.
After all, dodo birds don’t exist anymore.
Christopher Evans worked with Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice for ten years before becoming Ward 2 Alderperson for the Urbana City Council.
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