Friendly Fire Injured Crest Hill Cop, Suspect Never Stabbed Him: Ferak

JOLIET, IL — Dan Jungles is the chief deputy sheriff of criminal investigations at the Will County Sheriff's Office for Sheriff Mike Kelley, and he also wears a second hat: chairman of the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force.

As many Joliet Patch readers may already realize, Jungles does not do a good job at telling the truth when it comes to shootings involving the police. That's not one of his strong suits, and he knows that.

On April 11, the Will County Sheriff's Office was taken to task in a major exposé by CBS Channel 2 investigative reporter Dave Savini regarding the Nov. 6, 2021 deadly shootings by sheriff's deputies inside a senior citizen's home in the Sugar Creek area of Joliet Township. The CBS report was headlined, "Will County deputies shot a grandfather in the back and never told the public. Five months later, officials still won't show the body camera video."

The day after Savini's report, Joliet Patch revealed that Sheriff Kelley and Will County Coroner Laurie Summers, both Democrats, are now the subjects of a new Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by Winnetka attorney Ian Barney on behalf of the Wells family.

Related Patch coverage:

Will County Fails To Disclose It Shot 70-Year-Old Man: FOIA Lawsuit

At the time of the April 12 FOIA lawsuit, the Will County Sheriff's Office and its task force chairman, Jungles, were refusing to release footage from any of the body cameras worn by the two deputies who shot 21-year-old Jabbar Muhammad and 70-year-old Eldred Wells Sr inside the family's Joliet Township home on Nov. 6, 2021. Summers refused to provide the grieving family with any of the autopsy reports, for five-plus months.

Now, Joliet Patch can confirm, there's a second deadly shooting case overseen by Jungles and the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force where the task force chairman chose to publish wrong information about the key facts of the case.

By doing so, Jungles shielded by the Crest Hill Police Department and one of its supervisors from coming under intense scrutiny at the time of the incident on March 14.

That night, I got to the scene fairly quickly, and there was a massive presence of area police officers who blanketed the neighborhood. More than 30 police cars parked along Pioneer Road. The Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force issued a news release with details on what happened.

The highlights from the news release regarding the March 14 killing of 30-year-old Crest Hill resident Matthew J. Parks are as follows:

"During the confrontation, Parks stabbed a Crest Hill Police Officer in the leg, with a knife. This officer has been with the Crest Hill Police Department since September of 2019. It is believed that the knife cut the femoral artery of this responding officer’s leg. A Sergeant with the Crest Hill Police Department shot the suspect several times in defense of the injured officer’s life. This Sergeant has been with the Crest Hill Police Department since September of 2004. Responding officers performed life saving measures on Parks, but he succumbed to his injuries on scene.

"In addition, another responding officer performed life-saving measures by applying a tourniquet to the leg of the officer down in order to control the bleeding. This officer has been with the Crest Hill Police Department since February of 2007."

However, within days of the Crest Hill police shooting, several sources in the law enforcement and the legal community began alerting me that the information being disseminated by Jungles and the Will-Grundy Major Crimes Task Force did not appear to be what actually happened.

Rather than take them at their word, I reached out for clarity.

I contacted the public information officer for the Will-Grundy task force, Romeoville Police Chief Ken Kroll, who I've known for several years.

On March 17, I sent the following email to Kroll: "Ken: In reference to the March 14 shooting in Crest Hill at the Pioneer Road apartments, I've been hearing conflicting stories regarding the Crest Hill police officer who was seriously injured.

"Can you confirm for me that the Crest Hill police officer WAS NOT shot by friendly fire by one of his fellow Crest Hill police officers?"

Within an hour, Kroll replied to my email on March 17, and he copied Jungles on his message.

"Hi John —I feel bad doing so … BUT, I’m throwing this to Dan Jungles. Dan is the current Director of the Task Force. Since neither the Crest Hill nor the Shorewood case involve the WCSO – Dan has been handling the media duties for these most recent Task Force OIS cases. I don’t have any information on either case that hasn’t already been made available to the media."

A quick point of clarification, there was a second deadly police shooting that same night as the Crest Hill shooting, at the La Quinta hotel parking lot in Shorewood near Interstate 55.

However, I was not pursuing a follow-up story in connection with the Shorewood police shooting at the time.

Anyway, Jungles wrote back to me within a few hours regarding my question about friendly fire taking place in the Pioneer Road apartment complex where Parks was killed by the Crest Hill police sergeant.

"John, The task force will not be making any further comments in regards to either of these cases, until we are further along in our investigation. Unfortunately, cases like these take time to investigate, and I will not comment on rumors or any conflicting reports that you may have heard. We are going to base our investigation on facts. In this case, these facts will take some time to gather ... Respectfully, Deputy Chief Dan Jungles, Special Operations/Investigations, Will/Grundy Major Crimes Task Force Chairman."

Let's fast-forward to this week. Jungles had a transparency epiphany, which is good to see take place. Better late than never, I say.

On Wednesday afternoon, Jungles issued a follow-up news release regarding the deadly Crest Hill police shooting of Parks. Jungles finally corrected the record of facts — 37 days later, after the Chicago television stations that converged on Pioneer Road have lost interest in the case.

To prove my point, none of the Chicago TV stations covered the follow-up news release issued by Jungles on Wednesday. If you don't believe me, Google the words "Crest Hill Police Shooting Matthew Parks" and see for yourself.

"It was originally reported to members of the WGMCTF that Matthew Parks stabbed one of the responding officers in the leg during the OIS incident. That information was incorrect, and interviews and evidence obtained throughout this investigation have indicated that the officer’s injury was due to gunfire," Jungles' news release issued on April 20 now states.

"One of the rounds discharged by the sergeant struck the officer that compromised the apartment door. The gunshot severed an artery in the officer’s leg. Two of the responding officers on scene performed life-saving measures on the injured officer, by applying a tourniquet in order to control the bleeding. The injured Crest Hill police officer was transported to a local area hospital and underwent numerous surgeries to repair the damage done to his leg. Since the date of the incident, the officer has been released from hospital care and is recovering from his injuries."

Now, we know that Parks did not stab any of the Crest Hill police officers who responded to the 911 call in the Pioneer Road apartment complex.

The corrected news release from Jungles now states: "Responding Crest Hill officers observed Parks with the kitchen knife high over his head, approaching the Crest Hill Police Sergeant in an aggressive manner. The Crest Hill Police Sergeant discharged his firearm several times in the direction of Parks, who was approaching him with the knife. The gunfire struck Parks numerous times, and he was later pronounced deceased on scene."

Last August, while I was interviewing people about a homicide on Route 53 in Preston Heights that he did not want anybody to know about, Jungles told me over the phone how we both had jobs to do, but he was of the belief his job was more important than my job.

If that's the case, let's hope Jungles gets much better at mastering the public transparency part of his job duties real, real fast, because right now he's not getting a passing grade from anyone.

Do you really believe it took Jungles 37 days to figure out whether the Crest Hill officer was stabbed with a knife or suffered a gunshot wound from another officer's gun?