Shelby County Board Meeting – Federal Lawsuits Exposed – Records Deleted – Questions Answered

Shelby Co. (ECWd) –

The Shelby County Board held its regular meeting last night which can be viewed below.

A few things that took place were noteworthy.

There are three federal lawsuits involving Shelby County government and prior to Wednesday, the newly appointed State’s Attorney had no knowledge of those cases and advised the board of them.  After speaking with several board members, none had any knowledge of those lawsuits outside of our reporting even though the county is a named defendant in one of them. The two other cases involve the Sheriff’s office and corrections officers.  All three cases deal with alleged civil rights issues regarding alleged medical treatment, or lack of it, to inmates.  We exposed the first one in this article in 2021.

• James Griffith Complaint
• Nick Wilson complaint

Social Media Concerns

“Haven’t seen anything on the States Attorney’s page since she left office showing who they put away“.

That is because the official Facebook page of Shelby County State’s Attorney’s Office was deleted, as confirmed last night during the meeting. We do not know who deleted the public record which had 2.2K followers to include comments, but know that it was deleted well before the current State’s Attorney was sworn in. For those who question if an elected official’s official Facebook page is a public record, they should know that it is.  We can only wonder if the deletion of public records will be of any concern to those critical of the lack of Facebook posts by the State’s Attorney’s office.  We understand the State’s Attorney is going to spend his time focusing on the approximately 850 open cases he walked into rather than spending time creating Facebook posts. He did state he would be providing the board with a monthly update on the progress in his office.  We understand the first update has been provided but we have not obtained a copy yet.  Once we receive it we will publish an article disclosing it.

“we see no public purpose served in keeping Mr. Hanlon’s drinks cold.”

Who knew the purchase of a mini refrigerator in the State’s Attorney’s office would garner so much interest on social media?  Had those so concerned asked they would have saved themselves a whole lot of typing, but we understand that would negate the real reason for their typing. We asked the State’s Attorney about it and the public can now rest easy as now that office can be added to the list of offices that have refrigerators which includes the Treasurer, County Clerk, and Probation.  We have been told every office in the county has one but have not confirmed that yet.  According to the State’s Attorney, it was purchased so that employees, which he is one also, would have a place to put their lunches or drinks along with storing bottled water that can be provided to those who come to the office to discuss their cases, such as victims, witnesses, defendants and their attorney’s.  We wonder if such concerns of keeping drinks cold for other public officials will carry the same concern.

“Is this sudden push to scan physical documents into digital archives designed to make remote work easier for our two newly appointed SA officials from the greater Chicagoland area? Having remote access to documents, presumably, could allow Mr. Hanlon and Ms. Ambroziak to largely stay home, which is not Shelby County.”

Had the actual question been asked to the State’s Attorney, they could have avoided all the insinuations and assumptions that led people down a false narrative path. The “sudden push” is to bring the actual records management of the office into current standard practice commonly found in our judicial system. The scanning of documents had nothing to do with remote access any more than desktop computers. The push was to ensure timely access to them by the courts, public defenders, and the SA office as was explained during the meeting.

We urge everyone to watch the meeting as there were numerous discussions throughout that are simply too lengthy to explain in an article.