CHAMPAIGN — City council members and police Chief Anthony Cobb provided information Tuesday on to the city's response to an Urbana man's website alleging corruption and misconduct in his August 2015 arrest.
In an open letter published in December 2018 on a website registered for that purpose, CorruptCU.com, that has been widely shared on social media, Christopher Hansen detailed his account of his Aug. 22, 2015, arrest after being accused of stealing a woman's purse in downtown Champaign. Charges against him were dismissed that October because of "insufficient evidence to proceed or prove beyond a reasonable doubt," according to the state's attorney's office.
But Hansen, a 16-year resident of Urbana, wrote online that the story of his arrest is a "saga (that) involved a corrupt, violent and incompetent police force, a savage and malignant county jail, willfully negligent news agencies and a downright malicious close friend of the past Mayor of Champaign."
On Tuesday, Cobb said there is currently an internal investigation or administrative review looking "into the allegations and to identify if policy was violated." He said prior to the publication of the website, police had not received a formal complaint from Hansen.
A final report could come as soon as a month, Cobb said, adding that his office will not give public comment until the review is finalized.
The comments came after several community members took time during the public-comment portion of the council's regular meeting to express their concerns over Hansen's allegations. Hansen, who spoke during the public-comment period of last week's council meeting, again gave details of his arrest Tuesday and mentioned he was contacted by police Deputy Chief Tod Myers after that meeting.
Hansen said Myers told him he had completed an "administrative review" of the blog and needed help finding some police emails.
When Hansen asked to see the report, he said, Myers and Cobb refused, saying that it was a draft and thus not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. Hansen said he was unaware the review or investigation was still ongoing.
"It seems the Champaign police are not very transparent," he said. "I find it remarkable that Myers completed his review without even speaking to me, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, since the Champaign police are not known for responsible investigating."
Hansen then proceeded to detail his arrest and asked "if this is what a Champaign police investigation looks like, why do we trust the police to review themselves in misconduct cases?"
"This is not transparency, this is secrecy," Hansen said. "And this is exactly the type of behavior that causes citizens to not trust your police department. It makes it seem like you're just trying to cover yourselves."
Lauren Kent of Urbana, who said she's known Hansen the longest out of those who spoke, took the dais to defend her long-time friend and call on the city to address the allegations.
"This will keep happening until you do something to stop it," Kent said. "Chris was fortunate not to have been shot and/or killed during his initial ordeal. Would the story have been the same were he a black man? We finally have someone with the means to draw attention to an issue that is every day affecting people without a loudspeaker. To shirk from this responsibility can only continue to bring shame."
Council members who responded to the comments chose their words carefully and took their time to discuss the issue while not commenting on any specifics.
"I typically don't comment on this stuff" was member Will Kyles' response, while fellow member Matt Gladney said "sometimes it's not always easy to know what to say and sometimes you say nothing," and Mayor Deb Feinen said, "I really do not have a comment" until "all the facts and evidence" are in and Cobb's final report comes out.
"To the extent you were unaware that the internal investigation was going on, I'm sorry for that," Feinen said. "Someone should have reached out to let you know that your information had been received and that there was an investigation going on."
She added that part of the silence he experienced at last week's meeting "is because we were aware of that investigation" and did not want to comment.
Council member Alicia Beck, one of three who were not present at last week's meeting, pushed Cobb on a timeline for when the report will come out and called for "mutually respectful dialogue" as the discussion moves forward.
"It's going to be important for us to have dialogue that is productive and not simply accusatory on one side or the other," Beck said. "We need to have a productive conversation that looks at solutions and outcomes we want as a community.
"I hope that what we learn from this will be that we need to continue as a community to improve our relations between citizenry as a whole and our police force."
