Rick Aleman: An innocent man with a conscience -- and, therefore, a police victim

Rick Aleman ran a day care facility in Hanover Park, Illinois. In September 2005, a woman named Danielle Schrik, whose 11-month-old son Joshua was enrolled in the day care, dropped off her son after telling Aleman that the child had been feverish and lethargic.

Shortly after Ms. Schrik left, Joshua collapsed. Aleman called 911 and began to administer CPR. Police took Aleman in for questioning. The officers pressed Aleman to sign a waiver of his Miranda rights against self-incrimination, and repeatedly deflected his requests for help from an attorney.  Video of the interrogation showed that when Aleman asked to consult with his lawyer he was told to “keep quiet,” and subjected to alternating promises and threats.

“You need to tell us something or you’re not going anywhere,” one officer told Aleman.

At one point Aleman was told that doctors had concluded that Joshua’s death was the result of shaken-baby syndrome ; this prompted the grief-stricken man to say that he must have been responsible.

“During the interrogation [Officer Joseph] Micci repeatedly told Aleman that he’d talked to three doctors and all had told him that Joshua had been shaken in such a way that he would have become unresponsive (unconscious) immediately, meaning that Aleman’s shaking must have caused Joshua’s injury,” recounted Judge Richard Posner of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in a November 21 ruling. “This account of what the doctors had said was a lie, but it elicited from Aleman the statement that `I know in my heart that if the only way to cause [the injuries] is to shake that baby, then, when I shook that baby, I hurt that baby․ I admit it. I did shake the baby too hard.’ Yet intermittently throughout the protracted interrogation he continued to deny, and express disbelief, that he could have caused the injury.”

.Aleman was charged with murder when Joshua died a few days later.Following what Aleman’s wife Barbara described as “fourteen months of hell,” that charge was dismissed when it was revealed that Todd Carlson, one of the investigating officers, had lied about the doctors’ findings. He had also covered up the violent criminal history of Joshua’s mother, in whom he had a romantic interest.

“Carlson, who played the central role in screwing up the investigation … had been dispatched to the hospital immediately after Joshua was taken there on September 9, to interview Joshua’s family and the doctors who were caring for him,” explained Judge Posner in reviewing the facts of the case. “He asked Danielle whether she had ever struck Joshua and she said no, although she acknowledged that he’d had a fever in the days leading up to his collapse. This should have been a warning that his collapse on September 9 might have been caused by a blow or a shaking several days earlier that had first manifested itself in his fever and lethargy…. Nevertheless Carlson decided he would investigate Danielle Schrik no further. From his subsequent conduct in attempting to protect her from questioning by Booker and in holding her hand and sobbing with her at Joshua’s funeral, a reasonable jury might infer that he was sexually attracted to her and for that reason wanted to keep the investigation focused on Aleman.”

When child abuse investigator Michael Booker learned about Carlson’s actions, “he was disturbed and on September 13, the day of Joshua’s death, interviewed Danielle in Carlson’s presence, “continues Judge Posner’s account. “She acknowledged some of her criminal background, which included crimes of violence, but not all of it. According to statements by her mother and her boyfriend, Danielle had broken her mother’s jaw and threatened to kill her and Joshua; she had had physical fights with Joshua’s father and been arrested and charged with battery during one of those fights; and her mother had seen her shake Joshua frequently and the mother’s boyfriend had had to protect the child from Danielle.”

Carlson and his comrades had done everything they could to compel Aleman to testify against himself. His behavior toward his would-be paramour was strikingly different: “Carlson told Danielle not to speak to Booker or any other investigator, and when Booker repeatedly tried to call her after the initial interview there was never a response.”

It was Aleman’s providential good fortune that his case was reviewed by that rarest of things, a conscientious prosecutor, who concluded that the videotaped interrogation was “more exculpatory than inculpatory.” However, before the case was finally put to rest more than a year later, the Aleman family would lose practically everything they had worked for.

“To post $150,000 in cash, or 10 percent of his $1.5 million bond, the father of five sold his Hanover Park house and borrowed money,” reported the Chicago Daily Herald. Aleman also had to move his family out of the suburb out of fear for the safety of his children. Years later, the once-independent and financially secure businessman was still paying off loans and attorney fees.

“I had no house, no money and no job,” Aleman recalled after the case was dismissed. “I had to start over from scratch…. We’re living a different kind of life,” Aleman said. “We were comfortable before and now we’re struggling. It’s taken a major toll on us. Who’s responsible?”

Aleman filed a suit for wrongful arrest, malicious prosecution, and numerous civil rights violations. Carlson and his comrades, invoking the spurious doctrine of “qualified immunity,” sought to have the lawsuit dismissed. The November 21 federal appeals court ruling will permit the suit to proceed.

If Aleman had stolidly refused to cooperate with the police, he would most likely have been spared this ordeal. Like too many other Americans, Aleman assumes that police are trustworthy and motivated by a desire to learn and act on the truth. In fact, police are taught to lie – through both informal on-the-job training and formal instruction. They consider it a personal prerogative and an indispensable part of their professional skill set.

“Police lie. It’s part of their job. They lie to suspects and others in hopes of obtaining evidence.”

That assessment wasn’t offered by a criminal defense attorney. Those are the opening words of an essay by former prosecutor Val Van Brocklin in the “training” section of Officer.com. In fact, that essay is the first installment in a two-part series entitled “Training Cops to Lie,” in which Van Brocklin offers guidance to police officers regarding their supposed right to lie and deceive criminal suspects. Nowhere in her essay does Van Brocklin admit the harm done to innocent people by lying police. As a former prosecutor who now makes her living addressing law enforcement audiences, her sole intent is to teach police how to lie effectively, and protect themselves from negative consequences.

Never talk to the police. Always assume they are lying to you. They aren’t interested in the truth; they are trying to put you in jail. Don’t help them.