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March 28, 2024

E. Kenneth Friker, from Klein Thorpe Jenkins Law, tries bullying library patron –

By John Kraft & Kirk Allen

On August 12, 2014

ORLAND PARK, IL. (ECWd) –

The Orland Park Public Library held a personnel meeting today in which they want to give pay raises to library employees. Some of these employees are making far more than the average library pays in the surrounding area, the OPPL in running a huge deficit due to paying Klein Thorpe Jenkin well over $160,000 this fiscal year fighting FOIA denials and Open Meetings Act complaints, and to also keep the child porn flowing unfettered into the library computers. Yes, the OPPL Board took positive (later found to be illegal by the AG) steps to ensure access to it on the library computers.

After this meeting, a patron kept his camera running and Mary Weinar tried to tell him to shut it off (must have taken lessons from her husband who likes flashing badges he is unauthorized to carry). He refused to stop filming. Then Mr. E. Kenneth Friker, an attorney at Klein Thorpe Jenkins, tried to put his legal expertise to use and told him to shut the camera off because there was a policy against it. Now we know he is an idiot for trying to say filming was not allowed.

First off, there is no policy against keeping a camera on after a public meeting. Second, the Illinois Eavesdropping Law was declared unconstitutional by the Illinois Supreme Court earlier this year, and finally even if there was an OPPL policy, a local public body cannot develop policies that contradict state law. So, more bad advice from KTJ, hope they don’t bill for it.

Fell free to drop him (Friker) a note and tell him how you feel about his bad advice: [email protected] or call him at: (708) 349-3888 or
(312) 984-6408

Here is the write-up from a witness to this:

On 8/12/14 just after the Orland Park Public Library’s special meeting of the Personnel Committee ended, E. Kenneth Friker (the Library’s attorney from Klein Thorpe Jenkins), was talking to Mary Weimar (the Library’s Director). An Open Public Meeting had just ended. The room this meeting was held in is inside a public building. It is accessible to the public and everyone in the room except for Kevin and me were public employees or elected public officials. One of the weird and childish games that the Board likes to play is to shout for us to stop filming as soon as the meeting is adjourned…but it’s a first amendment right to film in a public building. In this case, we are filming public officials in a public meeting room in a public building and there is no expectation of any kind of privacy in this situation. Though this meeting room is in a library, there are no patrons reading books in this area or doing anything with an expectation of privacy. So there is no valid reason to demand we turn our cameras off. What happens a lot is that before or after meetings a majority of a quorum of Board Members mill about and have conversations that could very well involve Board business. That needs to be caught on film. E. Kenneth Friker demanded several times that Kevin turn off the camera but Kevin asserted his first amendment right. We don’t believe that E. Kenneth Friker has the power or the right to tell us to stop filming in a public meeting room, where public officials are gathered with no expectation of privacy, inside a public building. Feels like another civil rights violation committed by this Library Board.

Video clip below:

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13 Comments
  • SafeLibraries
    Posted at 22:09h, 12 August

    At the end of the video the lawyer is walking towards Kevin and Kevin turns away and walks down a hallway. It appears to me, then, that Kevin was indeed intimidated by the lawyer into ending his filming within that room. Not saying Kevin should have stood his ground, rather that seems to me to be body language evidence of having actually been intimidated by the lawyer.

    And now, expect the “Mitch” troll to appear as on previous posts of yours in 3 … 2 … 1 …

  • Mitch
    Posted at 03:41h, 14 August

    It’s laughable that anyone would believe DuJan feels bullied. The guy goes around town looking for confrontations with a video camera that appears surgically attached to his hand. He was just recently seen blocking a woman’s path on the sidewalk while attempting to stare her down. Why in the world would someone who does things like this as if it were his job feel bullied because someone said dont? Might it be because he feels comfortable confronting women with his video camera but is scared if a man questions him? You’re hypothesis might be correct. Perhaps theirs is some sexism involved. I prefer to think a little higher of DuJan than you do and not believe he was scared in this situation at all, same as he appears when he causes confrontations with women.

    • jmkraft
      Posted at 06:39h, 14 August

      You keep talking about the sidewalk incident as if he asked her to approach him. That did not happen as I was standing right next to him. She went out of her way, deciding not to take the most direct route to her vehicle, to confront him, expecting him and I to move because she wanted to pass. She initiated the contact and had she instead took the most direct route to her vehicle nothing would have happened.

      • Mitch
        Posted at 09:00h, 14 August

        If she approached to confront and bully him, why didn’t he run away in fear as you allege he did here?

    • Anonymous
      Posted at 23:36h, 14 August

      What year do you think this is, Mitch? Who has a “video camera”? That was clearly shot on an iPhone. People today have iPhones with them everywhere, ready to go when something happens.

      • Mitch
        Posted at 18:50h, 15 August

        Most people don’t run around filming everything they see. Besides, most people don’t have iPhones, so your premise is incorrect to begin with.

        • Anonymous
          Posted at 16:50h, 16 August

          Mitch – it’s the year 2014. Just about everyone under the age of 40 has an iPhone or an Android smartphone. And when a board of elected officials breaks the law month after month it would be ridiculous not to film them.

          • Mitch
            Posted at 20:16h, 16 August

            You have yet to address why DuJan ran in fear from a man but not from a woman.

          • jmkraft
            Posted at 20:26h, 16 August

            I don’t know, I wasn’t there.

          • Mitch
            Posted at 21:36h, 16 August

            You weren’t where?

          • jmkraft
            Posted at 22:09h, 16 August

            At the meeting this post references

  • Anna
    Posted at 00:39h, 16 August

    A courthouse is considered a public building, is is not? Yet you can’t film in there. Defend that.

    • jmkraft
      Posted at 07:01h, 16 August

      Courts are AUTHORIZED BY LAW to develop rules to prohibit certain item in the courthouse and courtroom. That is slowly changing though with the Illinois Supreme Court recently authorizing cameras in the courtroom.
      Anything else?

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