MARION—Marion’s most recent officer to have been appointed to the position of police chief will be retiring as of July 31.
John Eibeck, pictured above, made the announcement at the March 24 Marion city council meeting.
“After 29 years, it’s time,” Eibeck told the city council and those in attendance, adding that he would be happy to have time to spend with his lovely wife.
Eibeck has been a police officer for these past three decades, but was appointed as chief in January of 2011.
Since that time, Eibeck’s tenure has been marked with problems plaguing his department much the same as they have been in many downstate towns and communities, as police departments state- and nationwide have come to be under scrutiny for tactics and actions that were largely out of the norm when Eibeck first became an officer of the law.
Many of these problems marked Eibeck’s department permanently, and have unfortunately left a legacy that will not soon be forgotten.
Brutalization of restrained suspect
Chief among these is the incident that occurred February 10, 2013 involving a restrained suspect, John Atkinson.
Two of Eibeck’s officers, Bryan Demotti and Dustin Lingle, were involved in the arrest of Atkinson that broke into a fracas at the police station, this resulting in a federal criminal case being filed against Lingle later in the year.
In November, Lingle was sentenced in the Title 18 US Code 242 federal civil rights violation, in which he was found to have violated Atkinson’s right to be free from the use of unreasonable force by a law enforcement officer, that unreasonable force being that Lingle kicked Atkinson repeatedly in the buttocks while Atkinson was handcuffed and face-down on the floor at the station.
Lingle was availed of his ability to be a police officer for five years, and while he wasn’t forced to make restitution to Atkinson, he was issued a thousand-dollar fine in the case.
Demotti was merely placed on a 30-day suspension for the incident.
The married Lingle also had the additional problem of being one of badge bunny Brittany Lane’s bed-buddies in the year prior to the Atkinson incident.
Eibeck’s cell phone number was found in Lane’s phone in 2013, and Disclosure asked Eibeck to comment on that unusual situation and how it could possibly have played into Lingle’s situation, but he made no comment.
Eibeck did, however, ensure that further information about Lane’s antics with another one of his officers more than a year ago, Jessie Thompson, was not disseminated (at least on the vulgar website topix.com) when that incident broke. Eibeck was said to have been on various computers issuing complaints to topix and using his standing as police chief to get comments removed about Thompson’s and Lane’s flagrant affair.
Stays online
Eibeck also pretty much remains online all day ON topix, stirring up hatred against Disclosure, particularly following an incident in December 2013 wherein Eibeck contacted the paper about what he believed was a misleading headline regarding former police officer Steve Waterbury and his meth bust in November.
Following Eibeck’s retirement announcement, he was busy doing the same; however, most of his input ground to an abrupt halt when Edgar County Watchdog John Kraft submitted a Freedom of Information Act request in early April for internet usage at the police department and on city-issued devices.
That FOIA had not been answered as of press time. However, all comments on the forums that were attributable to Eibeck mysteriously vanished during the five-day window…a futile effort on Eibeck’s part, as logins and IP traces remain.
Such attacks by public officials aren’t necessarily protected under First Amendment provisions as free speech, especially when they are issued by such an official with the intent to cause harm to a business or to threaten to cause harm…which these did (containing threats of a cyberattack), per 702 ILCS 5/12-6 (Illinois’ Intimidation law).
Immediately after all the comments disappeared and within a few days of Kraft’s FOIA (which answer could also contain identifying information of others involved in the conversation, thus placing even more of the onus on Eibeck), the chief announced on his Facebook page that he was scheduled to undergo heart bypass surgery.
Possible replacements
In the interim, two names have been tossed around as possible replacements for Eibeck: Marion assistant chief Dan Byrnes, and Marion’s first female police officer (in 1993), Dawn Cooper Tondini.
Tondini is the sister of Illinois State Police trooper Aaron Cooper, who on his own Facebook page had a fit a couple of years back about photos of himself appearing on her Facebook page…an understandable situation for an ISP employee, as the agency openly frowns on social media.
Cooper was embarrassed in January 2013 by massive coverage of the Jackson County coroner’s inquest into the March 2012 shooting death of Molly Young, during which he, as sole provider of testimony, spun evidence to make the shooting appear to be suicide, when all experts involved in the case—as well as the jury themselves—have issued they did not believe that it was.
With that hanging peripherally over the head of one of the mayor’s favored picks, it’s unknown when the decision of who will be the new Marion chief will be made.