Wayne A. O'Connor
WILLIAMSON CO., Ill. - Months after a whacked-out Indiana resident tried to pull a slick one - and almost succeeded - on Paris and Edgar County authorities, yet another guy has done the same, this time in Johnston City in Williamson County.
The latest is Wayne A. O'Connor, who was charged on November 7 with a federal count of Impersonating an Officer and Employee of the United States. O'Connor, 48, has already run afoul of the law when it comes to gun violations: In June of 2016 in Williamson County, he was charged with Class. 4 felony Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Loaded Weapon without a FOID Card. In July of this year, however, he was allowed a reduced charge of Carrying/Possessing a Firearm/First Offense, a Class A misdemeanor, in a plea deal, which he took. O'Connor is currently under 12 months conditional discharge...and that won't play well with what happened back in October.
Court documents show that following the plea in July, on October 11, O'Connor went to the Johnston City Police Department, attempting to retrieve his FOID Card and the weapon that he'd been spotted wearing when he got arrested in 2016, a .357 Comanche III revolver, from police custody. O'Connor's arrest had taken place at Casey's in JC, when the presence of the weapon on O'Connor's person apparently was what alerted someone to call the police. Police interviewed O'Connor after the arrest, and during that interview he told authorities that he had "the authority to carry a firearm under his belt buckle, which he said is an authentic United States Marshal Service belt buckle"
When the officer asked O'Connor who he was employed with, O'Connor told him he was employed by the Illinois State Police Drug Task Force; and when he was asked who his supervisor was, O'Connor said it was Williamson County Sheriff Bennie Vick.
Adding to this fantasy, O'Connor advised the JC officer that he'd been employed in law enforcement since he was 16 years old, beginning in 1986, and that when Hurricane Katrina struck the southeast in 2004, he was left in charge as the State of Illinois' Emergency Management Director. O'Connor also said he was once employed with the Secret Service and had "provided protection for five presidents when they were in the local area." He added that only the Illinois State Police, the U.S. Marshals Service and the Secret Service knew about his security and high-profile duties, and that he would be "paid for his service when his contract expires." He also added that he is forbidden to have another job due to his relationship with the Federal Government, and that when the president comes to the area, he has a two-way radio issued to him by the Indiana State Police, and that's how he knows the president is in the area. About the two-way radio, O'Connor said that only he and Sheriff Vick have them.
When the JC officer upon whom all these tall tales were unloaded contacted Sheriff Vick, the sheriff advised that O'Connor contacts him periodically wanting to join the Williamson County Auxiliary,and that he's never given O'Connor permission to carry a firearm in any capacity.
That was all in 2016. Fast-forward to October 11, 2018, when O'Connor tooled on up to the JCPD, carrying a wallet with a "Security Officer" badge and a star-type belt buckle, which was photographed by JC Assistant Chief Barter.
While at the PD trying to retrieve his previously-seized items, O'Connor gave a written statement to the JCPD in which he claimed (typos intact) "U.S. Dept of Jusice of Washington DC-U.S. Marshal Services told me to come up to Johnston City Police Dept & see if they have my old Foid card to get my gun & stuff back" and "I work for the U.S. Marshal Service out of Washington DC-under Justice Dep. 888-930-1268."
Federal authorities contacted U.S. Marshals Service Human Resources Office about O'Connor and spoke with Supervisory Human Resource Specialist Ivy Hairston, who conducted a records search to determine if O'Connor currently worked or has ever worked for them. Hairston advised she wasn't able to find anyone in the personnel database matching O'Connor's name and personal identifiers; none were there. This qualified him for being charged with the offense of False Personation, and he was subsequently so charged at the end of October and arrested. The matter didn't come to light, however, until the federal grand jury met and returned a true bill of indictment, which occurred on November 6 (the federal grand jury was busy that day, resulting in this indictment for Jura Perkins as well.)
Both Perkins' and O'Connor's arrests involved troubling aspects: Apparently, these full-grown adults believe they can allegedly lie and/or make horrific statements and that's somehow just okay for them to do and get away with. Whether it's because mainstream media has gone completely off the reservation and TV talking heads, spewing hate, vitriol and threats and getting away with it daily (because they're socialists, wherein a different set of laws apply to them, apparently, as few are actually arrested for such threats as Perkins was) or whether people are just nutty and we're all suffering from the shutdown of the asylums and institutions, it's unknown.
What IS known is that real media in the vicinity of where these instances are occurring had better get to reporting them properly so folks can be aware that there's a distinct issue coming to the fore here. It's not amusing one bit that crimes allegedly being committed by apparently-disturbed individuals are now seemingly on the rise. Ages ago these kinds of people wouldn't be out and about to create the disturbances they currently are; they'd have been institutionalized for the protection of themselves and others. The commonality among school shooters, as an example, is that they are generally doped-up on whatever mind-altering substance their parents and doctors believe fits their "problem"...when most of the "meds" out there simply exacerbate the problem. Most of the time, meds aren't necessary...and where they are necessary, most of the time they don't work. So something more proactive needs to transpire.
People like Justin Hefner (linked in the first paragraph), Perkins and O'Connor are just the ones who get caught. Over the years we here at Disclosure have encountered some complete nutjobs, most of whom only act out their bizarre fantasies online or by mail (sometimes to us, but sometimes to authoriites about us) and rarely get to the point where their nuttiness warrants a complaint. But that could change in a heartbeat in society's current incendiary atmosphere. There seriously needs to be an accounting for those who knew of the whacky actions of an individual who later goes on a rampage. Maybe that will be the impetus needed to bring back institutions and start housing the dangerous in them.