For years in Fox Lake, young aspiring police honed skills suited to an aggressive tactical force, running sniper drills and staging SWAT raids, sometimes dressed in camouflage fatigues.
The Explorer post’s leader was a tough-talking Army veteran with a drill instructor’s bearing — police Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz. He barked commands at his charges during elaborate exercises, such as a 2011 operation in which he and several young men boarded a houseboat with orange-tipped weapons that appear to have been dummy guns.
“Don’t point your weapon at your buddy or I’m gonna kick your butt,” he shouted during the drill captured in video Gliniewicz posted to his Facebook page.
Gliniewicz’s death in September — first reported as a murder, then ruled a suicide — cast a light on the program he ran and allegedly plundered of thousands of dollars. Officials noted the chapter’s military tone, along with Gliniewicz’s alleged mismanagement, as they disbanded the group. Fox Lake’s leaders said they plan to restart the post but voiced disapproval of its past tactical focus.
Yet other local Explorer programs continue to teach similar skills. The Fox Lake controversy underscores the fact that the chapters — which serve teenagers as young as 14 — operate with limited oversight as they train future police officers.
The Boy Scouts of America’s local councils charter the chapters and provide some guidance, though Scouting officials acknowledged they give little direct oversight to the groups. While Fox Lake’s group struck a particularly aggressive tone, other chapters also focus on the use of force. This month, members of two local groups went to Arizona and donned camouflage fatigues for a competition involving drug raid and sniper exercises.
Alumni have said they learned valuable lessons from Explorer programs, and police officials said the chapters help them interest local kids in becoming police. However, at a time when police uses of force are stirring controversy and political upheaval, experts said they were troubled that the groups could be teaching aspiring officers to solve problems with force.
“It’s giving all the wrong people the wrong idea about what municipal policing should be,” said Franklin Zimring, a University of California at Berkeley law professor who studies policing.
Interviews, along with video and photos posted online, revealed little evidence that Explorers from the dozens of other posts in Illinois have participated as extensively in the types of tactical drills that went on in Fox Lake. But the Gliniewicz scandal has motivated scouting officials to work more closely with the groups, said Mike Hale, scout executive of the organization’s Northeast Illinois Council.
“We certainly plan on having more conversations with our posts about policies,” he said. “To be honest, I haven’t heard any of the others doing things like (Fox Lake was doing), but I think they’re obviously going to be very careful.”
Authorities have also alleged that Gliniewicz stole thousands of dollars from the program. Earlier this month, a community service officer who had worked with Explorers in Elgin was charged with stealing some $6,000 from a checking account created for the program.
In Mundelein, police responded to Gliniewicz’s alleged thefts by reviewing the finances and practices of their own Explorer program, and they found nothing wrong, said Chief Eric Guenther. Mundelein Explorers spend little time training with guns and focus mostly on more prosaic elements of police work, such as traffic stops, he said. Guenther regards the program as a recruiting tool and he wants Explorers to pick up accurate ideas about policing.
“People who are entering this thinking that it’s kicking down doors and jumping over fences all the time … that isn’t what we do 99 percent of the time,” he said.
After Gliniewicz’s shooting on Sept. 1, many former Fox Lake Explorers were quoted in the media mourning the loss of a mentor whom was found dead after telling dispatchers he was pursuing three men on foot. Gliniewicz — known to many as “G.I. Joe” — was given a hero’s funeral, and authorities spent weeks seeking suspects in his killing.
His public veneration soured in November when authorities said Gliniewicz had staged his death to look like a murder as it became clear his alleged theft from the Explorer program would be exposed. Records released recently call into question his fitness as a role model for youth; his history with the department was blotted by drunken indiscretions and sexual misconduct, records show.
Officials said he also mismanaged the Explorer post, failing to properly register some participants and using untrained adult volunteers. He stockpiled tactical gear — including bulletproof vests and gas masks — and authorities have alleged he submitted forged documents to get surplus military equipment.
Fox Lake’s Explorer post, founded in the mid-1980s, was known for service work, such as event parking duty. But video posted online also shows participants firing guns and engaging in fake but intense tactical raids. A video shows Gliniewicz and his son D.J. wearing fatigues as they hurl flash grenades, devices officers use to temporarily blind or deafen people during raids and which can badly hurt bystanders.
After the blast, the lieutenant exhaled smoke from his cigarette and told the assembled group of Explorers about the dangers of the grenades. Then, with a laugh he said, “That is awesome.”
Several former Fox Lake Explorers could not be reached for comment. Others, including D.J. Gliniewicz, declined to comment.
Fox Lake officials plan to bring the program back once the Police Department is “back on track,” said Anne Marrin, who was hired as the village’s first professional administrator in 2014. Marrin clashed with Gliniewicz, who toward the end of his life appeared to have considered arranging for her to be harmed, authorities have said.
When the village restarts the program, she said, it won’t be in the “paramilitary style” of its past. She said she would rather Explorers not wear fatigues, and she acknowledged the incongruity of teenagers training for tactical action in a village with little violent crime.
“We certainly don’t have shootings or anything like that,” she said.
Gliniewicz’s influence extended beyond the Fox Lake chapter, as the tactical courses it hosted were open to Explorers from other groups.
Fox Lake’s group routinely competed at the annual tactical competition for Explorers in Chandler, Ariz. Following Gliniewicz’s death, several of the group’s members joined the neighboring Antioch group, which sent Explorers to Arizona earlier this month to participate alongside Explorers from Joliet.
Events this year included “10-Man Hostage Rescue,” “Marijuana Field Raid” and “Sniper Challenge.” The Illinois teams placed strongly in fitness-related events, Antioch and Joliet police said.
Antioch Chief Steve Huffman called the use of force in policing a “necessary evil” and said it was important to teach aspiring officers all the elements of the job. Joliet Deputy Police Chief Edgar Gregory echoed that point and said that one of his city’s past Explorers recently joined the Chicago Police Department after finishing in the top of his class at the academy.
The Chandler officer who runs the tactical competition, John Somerville, said the contest encourages lasting friendships, along with raising funds for his chapter. He said he understands concerns about police use of force, but that his time as an Explorer proved valuable in his career.
“I think the benefits are just enormous compared to any potential risk,” he said.
But experts said they were troubled by young aspiring officers going through any program that heavily emphasizes the use of force. Though Fox Lake’s chapter may have struck an especially militant tone, its conduct mirrors a broader trend in police work, said Peter Kraska, a professor at Eastern Kentucky University’s School of Justice Studies.
“I think even though (Fox Lake) might be an extreme example, it’s only an extreme manifestation of the normalization of militarization in policing today,” he said.
dhinkel@tribpub.com
Twitter @dhinkel
