Authorities in Fox Lake, Illinois, have locked the door of the former Police Explorer post, in the basement of a community center on the city’s west side. That basement is packed to the rafters with military equipment, which investigators say the Explorers, and their controversial leader, Lt. Joe Gliniewicz, never should have had.
A week after declaring that the lieutenant’s death was a "carefully staged suicide," investigators took NBC5 Investigates into Gliniewicz’s former Explorer headquarters, revealing the mountains of military gear which even now is the subject of an intensive internal review. Acquired through an agency known as the Law Enforcement Support Office, those items are supposed to be requisitioned for use in bona fide police departments — not Explorer Posts.
But in the Gliniewicz post, there they were: Kevlar helmets, radios, ballistic vests, combat boots, gas masks and gun belts by the hundreds. And investigators believe it was the increasing pressure to account for those items, which caused Gliniewicz to take his own life.
