07/26/2023; UPDATED: 07/28/2023
McLean County Sheriff Matt Lane, in collusion with Bloomington Police Chief Jamal Simington, have been working for months to create a joint Special Weapons & Tactics (SWAT) team between the McLean County Sheriff’s Deputies and the Bloomington Police Department (BPD).
Sheriff Lane initially submitted a proposal in June, called the Emergency Assistance Group for Law Enforcement (EAGLE), to the McLean County Justice Committee. However, he pulled the item from the agenda prior to any discussion on it. It’s an apt acronym because eagles have these built in concepts of freedom & patriotism, but eagles are also ravenous birds of prey. It would require additional training & equipment, to be paid by McLean County tax-payers. Sheriff Lane has already admitted publicly there is no need for this agreement; it’s just a want.
Since his tactical retreat, Lane has been having closed door meetings with County Board members in an effort to prevent public scrutiny of the plan.
In an interview with Agitation Rising, Chief Simington said the BPD SWAT team already responds to requests for officer assistance by the Sheriff’s Deputies. The only change that would be made is Sheriff’s Deputies would be embedded into BPD’s SWAT team at county expense. The county would have to pay for the training and equipment for their own members.
So, how often are Sheriff’s Deputies requesting SWAT assistance from BPD or any SWAT team in the area?
After a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, Agitation Rising has discovered McLean County Sheriff’s Deputies have only requested SWAT assistance from another department once in the last year & a half.
Agitation Rising submitted the following request: “Please provide all incident reports that required the assistance of a special weapons and tactics team a.k.a. SWAT team and/or an Emergency Response Unit (ERU) from any department from January 1st, 2023-July 21st, 2023.”
We submitted another request for the entire year of 2022.
“The county responded with: The McLean County Sheriff’s Office has no responsive records for any reports for SWAT or ERU.”
Agitation Rising reached out to Sheriff Lane to clarify if it was the case that no SWAT deployments had been requested for the past year & and half. He did not respond.
Sheriff Lane does plan to bring the EAGLE proposal to the County again but is unlikely to do so prior to September.
UPDATE: The Sheriff’s office reached out to Agitation Rising after the publication of this article to inform us there was one time this year the Sheriff’s requested SWAT assistance for a search warrant. However, they refused to release the records.
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