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The Undercover Cops of Hoffman Estates

August 23, 2013


July 12, 1989 - Undercover agents of the Hoffman Estates Police Department (HEPD) pose in their disguises for a Metallica concert at Poplar Creek Music Theatre (Photo: Michael Fryer/Chicago Tribune)


June 2007 - Timothy Stoy, one of the undercover agents who assaulted Bollyn at his house in 2006, arrives at the Cook County Courthouse.  As an undercover cop Stoy does not even own a police uniform. A former prison guard, Stoy used an improper and dangerous restraining method by kneeling on Bollyn's right temple with his full body weight for several minutes - while a Homeland Security agent tortured Bollyn with a TASER. Both the restraining method and the TASER could have been lethal.


Darin Felgenhauer (center) acted as the "lethal officer" when Bollyn was tortured with a TASER while pinned down and handcuffed.  He stood about 10 feet away with a weapon, drawn and ready to fire. Bill McLeod, the village president who Bollyn ran against in 2000, is on the left; the new police chief on the right. McLeod is credited with engineering the "incentive package" for Sears Holdings Corp. in Hoffman Estates.


Sears Roebuck's Tax-Free HQ in Hoffman Estates - The Daily Heraldendorsement of Mayor McLeod says: "Even before there was an inkling that Sears might consider abandoning its headquarters, McLeod saw it coming and got in front of the challenge."


Mayor McLeod's "incentive package" means that Sears pays very little in property taxes. These are the taxes which fund local schools, libraries, fire and police departments. How does McLeod's deal benefit the local community? Who is the mayor serving:  the people of Hoffman Estates - or Sears Holding Corp.?


Clint Herdegen, the police chief at the time of the attack on Bollyn, became the chief of police in 1998 after 17 years on the force. Herdegen was made the chief of police in Hoffman Estates although he had only finished high school. Police departments that lack proper training and education are much more likely to be corrupt and abusive.

I came across a 1989 photo of a team of undercover agents of the Hoffman Estates Police Department (HEPD) ready to attend a rock concert. The agents in their disguises are very similar to the undercover squad that attacked me at my home in 2006, except the men who attacked me wore blue body armor vests and carried weapons behind their backs.

I decided to write this piece to show the history of undercover units in Hoffman Estates and how such undercover agents do not wearanything that identifies them as police. In my case, the police department presented false evidence in court and lied saying that the undercover agents had worn armored vests that had the word "POLICE" on the front. How much sense does that make?

It's important to understand that undercover police like this do not carry any police identification. Darin Felgenhauer, one of the three men who invaded our property, flashed my wife an Illinois drivers license that he pulled from his back pocket. Nothing that these men wore or showed indicated that they were police.

If three unidentified and armed guys wearing jeans and tee-shirts invade your home, what is a citizen to do? How would you respond if three armed men threatened you and your family - on your property?

I had called 911 to report a suspicious vehicle with three armed men prowling around my home after seeing this vehicle pass my house for two nights in a row. I was told a police officer would respond to my call and was alarmed when the three men that were the cause of my concern marched up my driveway. They were confronted on our property by my wife and 8-year-old daughter but refused to identify themselves when asked.

Why did the police chief send the undercover unit that was the cause of my concern to my house in response to my 911 call? Why did the undercover agents refuse to identify themselves? Such improper use of an undercover squad was clearly meant to serve as a provocation, but why did the police want to provoke me? 

We had not lived in our house for a year due to persistent harassment from FBI informants. We had just returned from several months in California and Utah, where I had met with Dr. Steven Jones and Dr. Thomas Cahill and concluded that the evidence indicated that thermite had been used to destroy the World Trade Center. 

I discovered that the attack by the undercover cops had been planned and that Michael Barber, the officer who led the attack, also works for the Department of Homeland Security. Barber is the one who TASERed me while I was pinned down on the ground with one man kneeling on my right temple, with my left hand in handcuffs and my right arm trapped beneath my body. Who was Barber working for when he attacked me? Homeland Security or the Hoffman Estates Police Department?

In this position I was completely unable to move. I then felt a cold object placed against the skin of my lower back. At this point, without any warning, I was hit with a "drive stun" of 50,000 volts from Barber's TASER. He and Stoy both lied in court saying that the other had given a verbal warning that the TASER was going to be used.

Why did Barber TASER me while I was pinned down by two men, with the third man standing a few feet away with his weapon drawn? What had I done to deserve such treatment - at my home in front of my family? Why was this brutal attack on an American journalist - in America - not covered by the press?

When I was pulled to my feet I saw that more than a half-dozen police cars and two fire department vehicles had suddenly appeared on the scene. As I later discovered from the police logs, these vehicles had all been nearby and had stayed back until after the undercover squad had attacked me. The undercover unit had taken over the response to the 911 call from a uniformed officer in a normal squad car.

So, what kind of police operation was this anyway? It looks like it was not a normal police action but something that had been ordered by a higher authority, like Michael Chertoff of Homeland Security.

The police vehicles made video tapes of the attack but these video records were destroyed by the police department in violation of their own procedures and law. Despite this intentional destruction of evidence, the police were not sanctioned by the court. How is it that the law does not apply to such corrupt police departments?

As I learned from the logs, the fire department had arrived at my home before the undercover unit, but stayed about 100 feet away - prepared for "an unknown medical emergency."  What had this three-man undercover squad, headed by an agent of Homeland Security, planned to do to me?

The Hoffman Estates Police Department is unusual in that it does not require its members to have any education beyond high school.  Two of the officers who attacked me, Barber and Felgenhauer, had received their police training in the military in Iraq and conducted the attack on me like a military mission. Police play an important role in the community and should be properly trained and educated about how to interact with people. The police in Hoffman Estates lack proper training and this has led to residents like myself being abused, tortured, maliciously prosecuted - and in some cases wrongfully killed.

The corruption in Hoffman Estates, of course, goes much deeper than the HEPD. There is the Crown family connection to Sears Roebuck, which moved its corporate headquarters from Sears Tower to suburban Hoffman Estates, where it received a special deal and pays very little in property taxes. This special tax status for Sears was recently extended by Bill McLeod, the village president.

Michael Bregy, Superintendent of School District 300 in neighboring Carpentersville said his district has lost more than $100 million in local tax revenue since the original deal reduced Sears' property tax burden, leading to budget cuts and high school classrooms jammed with up to 45 students. Sears' incentives, he says, are being put "on the backs of the kids in our school district."

One of the directors of Sears Holding Corp. is William Kunkler III, thehusband of Susan Crown. The Crown family is the Zionist family from Chicago that owns General Dynamics, one of the biggest defense contractors in the world. General Dynamics is the 4th largest federal contractor and receives about $16 billion a year for military contracts. These are the people with real "clout" in Hoffman Estates.


Susan Crown, William Kunkler, Renee & Lester Crown

Sources and Recommended Reading:

"Bollyn on No Lies Radio," Bollyn.com, October 20, 2011
www.bollyn.com/bollyn-on-no-lies-radio/

"Chicago's Elders of Zion and Obama's War for Profit," Bollyn.com, October 14, 2011 
www.bollyn.com/chicagos-elders-of-zion-and-obamas-war-for-profit/

"Photo gallery: A history of Hoffman Estates," Chicago Tribune, August 23, 2013
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/suburbs/schaumburg_hoffman_estates/chi-photo-gallery-a-history-of-hoffman-estates-20130613,0,4350645.photogallery

"Police Chief No Longer To Serve On Acting Basis" by Carri Karuhn,Chicago Tribune, September 17, 1998
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1998-09-17/news/9809170283_1_norris-new-rank-degree

"Sears' bad bet on business park spurs push to extend tax breaks" by Dan Hinkel and Melissa Harris, Chicago Tribune, November 20, 2011
articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-11-20/business/ct-biz-1120-sears--20111120_1_sears-and-kmart-stores-sears-headquarters-business-park

"Sears regularly gets multimillion-dollar property tax cuts," Daily Herald, October 21, 2012
www.dailyherald.com/article/20121021/news/710219914/

"Sears tax arrangement draws questions from Hoffman Estates schools" by Jennifer Brandel, WBEZ, November 8, 2011
www.wbez.org/story/sears-tax-arrangement-draws-questions-hoffman-estates-schools-93842

"Tax breaks could determine fate of Sears' headquarters" by Judy Keen, USA TODAY, November 28, 2011
usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/story/2011-11-25/sears-holdings-headquarters/51423932/1

"Video: Police Brutality in America" by Christopher Bollyn, Bollyn.com, July 21, 2012
http://www.bollyn.com/video-police-brutality-in-america/