Coroner: Joliet Police Played No Role in Man’s Death

The Will County’s Coroner’s Office has released a statement regarding the death of Eric Lurry. Eric Lurry died on January 29th after being detained by the Joliet Police Department. On January 28th Joliet Police were involved in a narcotics investigation in the area of Briggs and Washington Streets. Lurry was arrested as part of that investigation but after being detained he became unresponsive after ingesting a large amount of an unknown substance. He was then transported to St. Joseph Hospital in Joliet were he was pronounced deceased the next morning.

The report states that a toxicology report from the forensic lab indicated that Lurry had fatal levels of heroin, fentanyl and cocaine in his system. The levels were over 10 times the fatal range. The death was officially classified by the Coroner’s office as an accident due to heroin, fentanyl and cocaine intoxication. due to Lurry ingesting large quantities of the narcotics that were depicted in the recently release squad car video.

The Coroner’s office has stated that it is their opinion that the Joliet Police played no role and shared no responsibility in Lurry’s death. The multiple doses of narcan that were administered by the first responders failed to have any influence in the reversing the overdose. The levels of narcotics in Lurry’s system were too significant.

WJOL has also learned that the entire Joliet City Council have recently seen the video in question and that the Mayor and several council members have sent a letter to the Illinois Attorney General asking for an investigation to take place into what happened. The letter to the state AG was written after the Mayor attempted to send a letter to U.S. Attorney John R. Lausch Jr. stating the he and others have lost faith in the Police Chief and City Manager. Several council members pushed back saying that they had not lost faith in either party.