From [HERE] A grand jury has indicted a Joliet police sergeant on four counts of official misconduct for accessing the video of an arrested man’s fatal beating and suffocation by cops.

The indictment on Tuesday of Sgt. Javier Esqueda by a Kendall County grand jury alleges he used a laptop in his squad car to view a video of Eric Lurry’s death.

That is, for exposing the crimes of his fellow cops, Esqueda was arrested and indicted on four counts of official misconduct for accessing a video of alleged criminal activity within his own department.

The complaint states that on June 10, Esqueda “knowingly performed an act with (sic) he knew to be forbidden by law to perform in that he used the laptop in his Joliet Police Department squad car while not on duty to access the Joliet Police Department WatchGuard system to view a video file which was locked and he did so while in a motor vehicle which passed through Kendall County. All of the foregoing occurred in Kendall County, Illinois.”

[Remember, in a democracy bodycamera footage and all other property in the possession of the cops is owned by the people - but the the government actually owns us as their property b/c they are our masters. Accordingly, the public and the media will rarely, if ever, gain access to these videos, and cops can release them at their unilateral discretion; because the cops own and control all the footage. Like magic logic. BW]

Lurry, 37 year old Black man, was killed by cops in January while riding in a police vehicle after he was arrested at the scene of an alleged drug deal. The Will County coroner’s office nonsensically ruled his death an accident due to heroin, fentanyl and cocaine intoxication.

Esqueda released video that shows officers appearing to torture Lurry prior to his death. When police arrested Lurry, they put him in the back of a squad car and suspected him of putting drugs in his mouth. In an attempt to get Lurry to spit out the drugs, police held his nose closed while shoving a baton in his mouth and slapping him. This torture went on for nearly two entire minutes until Lurry fell unconscious and eventually died.

“He was suffocating,” Esqueda said. “In my opinion, anybody would suffocate in that situation.”

For five months, the department kept the video secret while clearing the cops involved. Nicole Lurry never knew of the video’s existence until Esqueda blew the whistle after he came across it.

Adding to the egregious act of hiding such damning evidence is the fact that the audio had been turned off after the officers were seen slapping Lurry.

“It was almost like the supervisor looks off and says something to somebody, and then you hear the sound cut out. That’s what alerted me that possibly, they were trying to get rid of evidence,” Esqueda said.

“So there was a deliberate, initial act to turn off the audio or get rid of the audio?” CBS 2 reporters asked Sgt. Esqueda.

“There had to be. There’s no way that can happen,” he said.

However, prosecutors determined there was no police misconduct. Joliet police eventually released three hours of video related to the arrest of Lurry.

Lurry’s wife, Nicole, has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Joliet and four police officers, claiming they engaged in “willful and wanton acts and reckless conduct” that led to her husband’s death.

While Joliet is in Will County, prosecutors say Esqueda’s alleged misconduct took place in neighboring Kendall County. Esqueda’s attorney Jeff Tomczak filed a motion on Oct. 21 to dismiss the case by arguing no actions by his client took place in that county.