The body camera footage from a recent Urbana Police complaint revealed a rather disturbing act by Officer Collin DeDecker. After a hit & run incident, DeDecker went door-to-door in an effort to identify a vehicle owner. DeDecker was then seen opening and searching inside of a resident’s mailbox without permission. Dedecker’s body camera shows him leafing through and inspecting individual pieces of mail. Even more troublesome, Urbana Police Lieutenant Jason Norton, after reviewing the incident, said that for Urbana Police, searching within mailboxes is “common practice” and they “do it all the time”.
(photo credit: ILDocs.com)
Urbana Police Procedure does not appear to comment on the issue of searching citizens’ mailboxes, but the 4th Amendment of the Constitution does. This is clearly an unwarranted search and an invasion of privacy.
Urbana Police Chief Bryant Seraphin refused to comment on the issue, and completely ignored the complaint about the unwarranted search. Both Jason Norton and Chief Seraphin also refused to acknowledge other policy violations by DeDecker, such as chewing tobacco while interviewing a victim, and making a derogatory statement about the race of a witness. Unfortunately, it seems the new Chief will be running business as usual for police in Illinois.
