Lt. Daniel Miller of the Forest Park Police Department has been on paid administrative leave since the end of April, when, while off duty, he forcibly detained a woman who was later released without charges.
Though the Cook County Sheriff’s Office planned to investigate the incident, the Village of Forest Park hired Gold Shield Detective Agency in June because the Sheriff’s Office was taking too long to begin its investigation.
“Ideally, you want to start an investigation pretty soon after it’s needed. You certainly don’t want to sit on it for a couple weeks,” Village Administrator Rachell Entler told the Review. “We hired an independent investigator to come in, who got started on it right away.”
Five months later, the village is expecting the investigation to come to an end soon. According to the contract, Gold Shield’s services will terminate after they are complete, but won’t extend beyond Dec. 31 of this year.
“I anticipate this will wrap up in the next few weeks,” Entler said. “When these investigations go on, I don’t know how long they’re going to take,” She added. “There’s no way for us to know. It depends on what they find during the course of the investigation.”
Gold Shield will give findings from the investigation to village officials, who will determine the appropriate course of action regarding Miller’s employment.
In response to how much the village has spent on Miller’s paid administrative leave, or on Gold Shield’s $180-an-hour services, Entler said, “I don’t have that information at the moment.”
Entler said Gold Shield has communicated with her regularly throughout the investigation, even though they haven’t emailed her since August. That was discovered in correspondence obtained by the Review through a Freedom of Information Act.
Since the start of Gold Shield’s contract in June, the investigative agency’s services have included: “Investigating the alleged policy/rule violations by public employees; interviewing relevant individuals related to the third-party internal investigation; referring any criminal acts uncovered to the appropriate law enforcement agencies; and writing memorandums, giving reports, or otherwise informing the client or its agents of the findings of said investigation.”
Timeline of correspondence
Commissioners unanimously approved the prior execution of Gold Shield Detective Agency’s services on June 22, but Forest Park officials have shared documents and videos related to Miller with Gold Shield through a SharePoint account since June 11.
Entler said, because the investigation needed to start as soon as possible, she conferred with commissioners individually ahead of the official vote. That majority approval was later ratified at the June 22 council meeting.
“Sometimes we can’t wait two weeks for an agreement, but I have to make sure that I have a majority vote before I can move forward with that,” Entler said.
On June 15, Jimmy Lee Jr., president of Gold Shield Detective Agency, sent Forest Park officials a request for several documents.
Documents included “police reports related to the incident from Forest Park, North Riverside, Riverside and any other jurisdictions; body worn camera video obtained by FPPD; radio transmissions related to the incident; 911 recordings; notes from the chief, deputy chief and any officers involved in the FPPD’s initial investigation; administrative leave order; internal memos related to the incident; department policies related to the internal affairs policy, law enforcement authority (on-duty/off-duty), use of force, emergency driving/pursuit driving, reporting of off-duty conduct, and training policy.”
On June 21, Lee was in contact with Bill Foutris of Foutris Law Office, who represents Briana Pantoia — the 18-year-old that Miller detained on April 27. Lee requested that Foutris help him schedule an interview with Pantoia.
“I am willing to meet her at her residence or another location where she may feel comfortable to complete the interview,” Lee wrote in an email. “I also understand that you do not need to be present at the time of the interview, however you mentioned that her parents may want to be present.”
On June 22, Lee requested from Entler documentation of Lt. Miller’s completed training and body camera video from the first Riverside police officer to arrive on scene April 27. Entler said in an email to then-Police Chief Ken Gross that she previously sent Lee a copy of all the certificates in Miller’s personal file.
Ken Gross sent Lee a link to the uploaded files, including Miller’s completed training for the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board; North East Multi-Regional Training; Capers, or Forest Park Police Department’s in-house records management system; NEOGov; and Bridge Learning.
“Several training classes may not be listed on the ILETSB portal,” Lee said in a June 22 email to Gross. “I just want to make sure he has not received additional training, maybe some in-house training or online training in addition to the training recorded by ILETSB.”
On Aug. 5, Lee came to Village Hall to do interviews with the village’s labor attorney, Michael Durkin of Storino, Ramello & Durkin Law.
Gross and Lee met Aug. 6. Later that day, Gross sent an email to Lee saying Deputy Chief Chris Chin contacted the Response to Resistance and Aggression Review Board — an internal portion of the Forest Park Police Department made up of police officers.
“Nobody discussed the review board with Lt. Miller and nobody shared any video with him,” Gross said in the email. “Our IT department informed me that he cannot track who accessed any items on our evidence server, so there is no activity log. They can only report who created the items/folders.”
Responding to media claims
The Patch previously reported that Miller might be eligible for retirement before his investigation is over. Under state pension law, an officer can start receiving benefits after 20 years of service, as long as the officer is at least 50.
“He will not satisfy both clauses,” Entler told the Review. Miller started with Forest Park Police Department in 2007, meaning he has nearly 20 years of service.
Last week on Facebook, someone commented on a Forest Park Review story covering local complaints of the length of the Miller investigation: “If he is on paid leave, why is his Jeep parked outside the police station all the time?”
On April 27 when Miller detained Pantoia while off-duty, multiple people recorded him and his personal vehicle, a Jeep with several bumper stickers and a license plate related to U.S. President Donald Trump.
“That is not his Jeep, it belongs to somebody else,” Entler said. “People have commented that his car is parked outside of Village Hall. I will say, while he cannot be here for work purposes, if he needed to pay a bill, for instance, he would be able to come to Village Hall.”