Looks like a suicide
http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/7/71/1070558/fox-lake-cop-death-ruled-suicide-sources
im sorry to hear it might have been a suicide. It’s so hard on the family.
It seems as if the OP’s suspicions have been confirmed.
ETA: Sorry! Didn’t notice I had been scooped!
Some time ago the wife blew her stack in front of the cameras at the mere fact suicide wasn’t eliminate off the bat for this guy, was deeply offended that the word was even mentioned. Can’t wait to hear her reaction now.
Yes, he was a nice guy and beloved by many. Being a suicide shouldn’t retroactively wipe that out.
I’m not sure someone who kills himself under apparently falsified conditions, costing considerable expenditure of public funds, qualifies as a “hero” - a term often applied to this individual.
Unfortunate that he felt the need/desire to kill himself. Wish he had done it some way a little more quietly - and less dishonestly. No, this one act does not erase everything this cop did and was, but neither should it be ignored. And this cop’s final action does not reflect badly on his family. But they ought not benefit from his apparently dishonest actions.
There should be an investigation as to whether he was involved in any official misconduct that precipitated his suicide. There does seem to have been some strife in the department at the time. I also hope - if factors pointed strongly towards suicide from the start - that officials should be held to task if they unnecessarily maintained a costly charade.
Bolding mine.
I hope there is no public reaction to be heard. She still lost her husband. I hope most people aren’t interested in rubbing it in her face.
Not others rubbing it in her face - the first time suicide was mentioned as a possibility she basically said anyone suggesting it was evil and went on from there. She took it very personally, implied it besmirched the honor/dignity/whatever of her family… If there had been something amiss either she completely missed/denied it, or was covering it up.
I’m listening to the news conference now - they just announced that they believe the suicide was “carefully staged” and Gliniewicz was involved in criminal activity along with two other individuals who are still alive. Apparently, he was under intense scrutiny.
Charges include:
- Stealing and laundering money from Police Explorer post
- Forged signatures on official documents
- Thousands of dollars used for personal expenses - mortgage, travel, “adult websites”
And it goes on. Evidence including “electronic messages” containing incriminating statements. The FBI concluded the crime scene was staged.
So… maybe the wife was in on this.
So… sure, he was a great guy who did some great things. He was also apparently a “great guy” who broke the law repeatedly. Criminals don’t always look like criminals, and they don’t act in a criminal manner 24/7 and might otherwise be generous, wonderful people. Except when they’re not.
This will be a great betrayal for those who looked up to and admired him. I feel sorry for them, and the family he leaves behind.
Oh, there’s no way that happens. There’s plausible deniability all over the place. And plenty of his colleagues, even if evidence for suicide was staring them right in the face, probably did convince themselves he couldn’t have done that - it had to be murder.
I have to admire the restraint of the OP. He took a lot of abuse from all sides in the first page of the thread only to be vindicated completely. I would have been jumping up and down and bumping the thread constantly with each new news story about this dirty cop.
The OP picked up the weird vibe right away. I only remember the first couple of days of press coverage, if there was more I missed it. Aside from a buried headline on a web page last night that brought me back to this thread was there any mainstream coverage of the suspected suicide that began to emerge as the case continued?
This all sounds screwy. I can understand not rushing to a conclusion of suicide but it sounds like that became obvious very soon. How much time was spent looking for non-existent assailants once this was seen to be a suicide? They must have known very quickly that he was shot with his own gun, in a manner consistent with suicide. From what I recall there was never any lead on the unidentified men (now known to be fictional).
It does sound like a costly charade to me. I’d like to know when the new media figured that out, if they ever did.
There were several fundraisers for the family; I wonder how much money they pulled in.
They may need the money - this being a suicide and criminal acts involved it will probably eliminate any police pension and life insurance they’d otherwise collect.
Even if suicide was suspected early on, the authorities are required to make a thorough investigation prior to making an official determination. Even if something seemed off in the crime scene initially a thorough investigation still needed to be done. I know in this day of instant gratification and TV shows that wrap up mysteries in an hour it may seem like two months is unreasonable but it’s not. At least the possibility of suicide was made public weeks ago, and those making those statements were promptly denounced by the family and much of public opinion.
Yes, there was an expense that in retrospect was not necessary… well, you’re talking about an individual who had already stolen from the community, are you surprised his actions led to additional cost? He planned for his death to look like the murder of a cop and he must have known that would result in massive expenditure of resources. He didn’t care. He was selfish. Selfish to embezzle funds, selfish to kill himself.
I don’t know about police pensions but I think it’s a myth that life insurance policies don’t pay out on suicides. It depends on the policy. I think most companies have a clause in their policies that the policy has to have been in force for (whatever the insurance company says is) a reasonable amount of time.
How much money do you think they would have received had it been known that he was a crook who committed suicide?
So he tried to delete evidence of his embezzlement and staged a suicide to look like death in the line of duty. There never were three assailants; he died by his own hand, with his own service weapon.
Sad, and bewildering.
Not a lot, but that’s because people are irrational. How he died has no real bearing on what his family needs or doesn’t need.
Hence why it’s a lot better that they didn’t know for sure. If they didn’t want to give it to someone who committed suicide, they shouldn’t have given it to someone who may have committed suicide.
they said the gun was 2 feet away from his body? How did that happen? Maybe he did not die instantly and was able to toss the gun away from him?
Why go to such lengths to cover up a suicide? Have insurance companies gotten hip to the “cleaning his gun and it went off” thing?
Could be. Reports are he had to shoot himself a couple of times; he got his body armor the first time. The chest shot may not have put him out immediately.
Could have been recoil. Or post-mortem reflex.
If he’d been standing, it could have bounced on the ground that far.
Irrational belief that dying heroically in the line of duty would short-circuit the investigation going on in the background, poised to wreck his reputation and make him into a criminal?