A group of Joliet ministers and political figures sent a message to Will County Sheriff Thomas Fitzgerald: Ignore us at your own risk.
Gathered outside the Will County Jail on Tuesday, despite subzero weather, as part of a continuing effort to draw attention to the treatment of black prisoners in the County Jail, they said they will take their battle with Fitzgerald to November’s general election.
As the 17 marchers made their way from the jail to the Will County Courthouse, they made it clear that they have only begun to fight.
“If Tom Fitzgerald and the other Democrats think this will go away, they have a surprise coming,” said Harvey Ferguson, a County Board member from Joliet.
“We will continue our efforts and these public gatherings until Election Day.”
Ferguson, other local politicians, and ministers and members from about 40 Joliet churches have complained publicly in recent weeks about what Ferguson calls “a pattern of abuse, both physical and mental, of blacks in this jail.”
The group has made the first-term sheriff the main target of its efforts.
The protests began after Rev. Edward Martin Jr., pastor of St. Paul’s Missionary Baptist Church in Joliet, said he was searched and verbally abused by two sheriff’s deputies when he was arrested at the jail Dec. 28 on an invalid 1989 warrant. Martin said he was at the jail visiting a parishioner.
The warrant had been issued April 26, 1989, when Martin failed to appear in court for a local zoning ordinance violation after a summons was mistakenly served on a man who lived on church property. Court records show Martin went to court May 3, 1989, and that the warrant was dismissed.
Fitzgerald has said that the invalid arrest warrant was an error by the Circuit Court clerk’s office, which has been under fire for more than a year for records foulups. The Martin incident has rekindled that controversy, in addition to putting heat on Fitzgerald and his department for remarks he acknowledged were “insensitive” to Martin.
“What they did to me in that jail was not only a slap in the face of black people, but a slap in the face of all human beings,” Martin told the protesters, who carried signs and chanted as they marched for about 45 minutes in Tuesday’s record cold temperatures.
In an effort he hoped would head off further confrontations, Fitzgerald announced a series of reforms last week that included the naming of Marilyn Dixon, a black woman, as chief of all deputies at the jail; sensitivity training for all deputies; and the creation of an affirmative action hiring plan.
At that time, Fitzgerald also said that because no rules were broken, he would not take disciplinary action against the two deputies involved in the arrest. Fitzgerald could not be reached for further comment Tuesday.
“What’s wrong is that the sheriff acknowledges what happened but doesn’t feel it is a problem,” said Rev. Genevieve Brown, an associate pastor at St. Paul’s.
In addition to marches and public protests, the group is planning to fight the sheriff in November’s general election.
Marvin French, a Democratic committeeman in Joliet’s 56th Precinct, said his committee already has decided not to endorse Fitzgerald and is considering a possible endorsement of a Republican. Fitzgerald is unopposed in the March primary. French said the group also would mount a voter registration drive to bring more pressure at the polls.
“Blacks in this county have to know there is an alternative to Fitzgerald,” French said. “If he thinks he can preside over this kind of abuse and get our votes, he is sadly mistaken.”
