Stung by a report critical of the Palatine Police Department’s investigation into the slayings of seven people in a Brown’s Chicken & Pasta restaurant, Palatine Mayor Rita Mullins last month called for an evaluation of the reports.
The panel assigned to that task was introduced Monday morning, and it was under fire within an hour by the Better Government Association, which released the report lambasting the Palatine Police Department in the first place.
The seven-member Assessment Team announced Monday they will review a controversial, 118-page report released by the BGA on Nov. 20, the same day Mullins called for an independent team to evaluate the findings.
Among many criticisms, the BGA report claimed police failed to secure the crime scene after the murders on Jan. 8, 1993, failed to canvass the area around the restaurant promptly and failed to coordinate the investigation.
The BGA also said Palatine Police Chief Jerry Bratcher’s carefully cultivated image and his business contacts with village officials insulated him from criticism and made him vulnerable to the belief that his department was capable of conducting the investigation when it was not.
Bratcher and Mullins have disagreed and suggested that the BGA study team set out to discredit the department.
On Monday, Assessment Team co-Chairman Aldo E. Botti, former DuPage County Board chairman and prominent attorney, said the team is “going to provide an objective review and analysis.”
“Wherever the chips fall, that’s where they’re going to be,” he said, adding that a report is expected no earlier than January and as late as June. “We’re not here to support or condemn any organization.”
Mullins had asked the Illinois State Crime Commission, which named her municipal leader of the year in June, to review the BGA report. Commission executive director Jerry Elsner selected the team, which, besides Botti, includes Elgin Police Chief Charles Gruber, former president of the Illinois Chiefs of Police, who is co-chairman; Joseph Griffin, former head of the Cleveland and Louisville offices of the FBI; Police Chiefs George Incledon of Morton Grove and Steve K. Admonis of Channahon; and Chicago police homicide investigators Joseph Murphy and Harold Kunz.
BGA executive director J. Terrence Brunner said the assessment team’s appointment amounts to “thinly disguised” protection for Bratcher and will lead to an attack on the valid criticism contained in the BGA findings.
“From the outset, these people have consistently attacked anybody who has criticized their investigation,” Brunner said. “In a democratic society, that behavior is thuggish, overbearing and it’s wrong.”
