Concealed carry trainers have checkered pasts
As Illinois became the last state to allow concealed guns in public, state officials wrote a host of rules designed to prevent irresponsible uses of force that could take innocent lives.
But multiple instructors authorized to teach people how to tote guns under the new state program are police officers with documented histories of making questionable decisions about when to use force, a Tribune review has found.
One instructor is an officer whom two suburbs sought to fire because of substantiated excessive force allegations, municipal records show. Another was accused by two ex-wives of physical abuse — and by one of repeatedly threatening to kill her — and resigned when his chief tried to fire him after a corroborated accusation that he hit a teen with a flashlight without cause, according to records.
A third officer was responsible for a use of force that was ruled justified but remains controversial — the fatal point-blank shooting of a motorist who struggled with police, which led to a lawsuit that was settled for $1.75 million.
The instructors' backgrounds raise questions about the state's program for ensuring that the covertly armed are well-trained. The program's rollout has been marred by instructors teaching classes that fell short of training requirements. More than 100 once-approved instructors have been banned for teaching faulty classes or being criminally charged or convicted, among other reasons, state police said.
Trainers face the same background check as anyone who applies to carry concealed weapons, state police said, and they must also hold a certification indicating they're trained to teach about guns.
But given the risks that could spring from novice gun owners packing lethal force, that's not enough, said Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who wants trainers to be subjected to higher standards and tougher review.
It would be disturbing for the state to allow an instructor who has used force irresponsibly to teach concealed carry, Dart, multiple trainers and several state legislators agreed. To allow police officers with excessive force in their career histories to teach civilians about the use of force is "crazy," said Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago law professor who has studied police brutality.
"Those are the last folks you'd want to hold out as trainers," he said. "People's lives are at stake."
Dart said trainers should be required to have exceptionally clean backgrounds, and there should be a separate process by which law enforcement officials could object to someone being allowed to teach, as they can do now for those who apply for a concealed carry permit.
The sheriff — who doesn't blame state police, but rather legislators, for what he sees as shortcomings in the law — acknowledged that courts have ruled that people have a right to carry guns. He noted, however, that there is no constitutional right to train others.
Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association, noted that the state's rules on training are tighter than those in states such as Wyoming, where one doesn't even need a permit to carry a hidden gun. Pearson said the training standards are strict enough and that foes of concealed carry just want to make it harder to get a permit.
"They would think that Jesus Christ could teach but certainly not Moses. Nothing is ever tight enough for them," he said.
Brandon Phelps, the downstate Democrat and concealed carry advocate who pushed the legislation, said he thinks the rules on trainers are strong. He added, though, that he's open to fine-tuning the law.
"I've said from the get-go, no one should be instructing, no one should have a concealed carry license, if they do harm to themselves or they do harm to others," Phelps said.
Some rules have already been changed. Last month, the Tribune detailed lawsuits from concealed carry applicants who complained that the state's review board rejected them without explanation or opportunity for challenge. The state has now changed the rules to let applicants respond to objections.
As of late July, about 82,500 people had applied for concealed carry permits; about 68,100 permits had been issued, said Monique Bond, Illinois State Police spokeswoman.
Police with troubled pasts
Police could carry concealed guns before the recent law. That means that an officer who wants to teach faces a background check but not the review process in which law enforcement could object to the permit because of, for example, domestic violence accusations that didn't lead to convictions, Bond said.
A review of a fraction of the 2,300 Illinois-based trainers found officers who had been accused of domestic violence in divorce filings or in orders of protection but had no convictions. The Tribune examined all of Lake County's instructors, and one man approved to teach there has been accused of both excessive force and domestic violence.
In the 1990s, two women who divorced Robert Palamar accused him of physical abuse, court records show. The second alleged in court filings that Palamar had physically attacked her, cracked her sternum and threatened to dismember her. In 1997, a judge granted that woman an order of protection against Palamar, according to court records.
In 1991, the Waukegan Police Department investigated a complaint that he jabbed a 15-year-old boy in the side with a flashlight several times without provocation and then, when the boy protested, said he should have hit him on the head, according to city records.
"I feel that Patrolman Palamar has proven himself not to be a credible or reliable employee and that his past and present acts of misconduct serve as proof that he is a detriment to the department and community to which he serves," Chief Phillip Stevenson wrote as he sought his firing.
Palamar quickly resigned, city records show. He was not charged with a crime.
Palamar, now an officer with the Zion Park District, said he has not taught concealed carry classes and has no plans to, though he's credentialed if he wanted to start. He denied abusing the women or using excessive force.
"My career has been an honorable one, and it's going to ride into the sunset in the very near future," he said.
Also approved to instruct is Alan Lother, a 20-year law enforcement veteran who has worked for two Lake County municipalities.
Both have tried to fire him.
In 1995, the Winthrop Harbor police board moved to fire him after he blasted a verbally abusive DUI suspect with pepper spray while the man was secured to a wall or bench with handcuffs, according to city records. A judge ordered his firing converted into a 30-day unpaid suspension, court records show.
In 1996 he was sued in federal court by a motorist who alleged that Lother threw him to the ground, dislocating his shoulder. The man cried for Lother to call him an ambulance, the lawsuit says, and Lother replied, "OK, you're an ambulance." Lother's report indicated the man had shoved him. The case was voluntarily dismissed, and it's not clear if any settlement was reached.
He later joined the Zion police, and his career has been punctuated by allegations of excessive force along with plaudits from residents, city records show. In 2002 he was suspended for three days after a departmental investigation indicated he had beaten a well-known local felon during a traffic stop when the man purportedly taunted him and suggested he'd had sex with the officer's significant other, according to city records.
In 2007 the department moved to fire him, but before the matter went before the city's police board, a new chief took over and Lother reached a settlement with the city in which he agreed to a 24-day unpaid suspension, city records show. The settlement does not make clear what incident led to the discipline but says the allegations were of "excessive force related to an arrest."
Lother declined to comment. None of the excessive force allegations led to criminal charges against him.
Asked about a prior Zion chief's move to fire Lother, current police Chief Steve Dumyahn said "the feeling was it was a little excessive." He called Lother a "very good cop" and said aggressive officers tend to draw more complaints. Lother has vast knowledge of guns and would make an excellent concealed carry instructor, the chief said.
In fact, the chief said, Lother is a firearms instructor for the department.
Fatal shooting
Albert Gonzales is a concealed carry instructor affiliated with a range in Winthrop Harbor. A few miles away in Wisconsin, he is better known for shooting and killing 21-year-old Michael Bell.
After he was pulled over Nov. 9, 2004, in Kenosha, an intoxicated Bell struggled with police who were trying to arrest him. Bell ended up pinned against a car in his driveway with two officers trying to restrain him as Gonzales drew his .45-caliber Smith & Wesson semiautomatic pistol, court records show.
Disagreement abounds on the last moments of Bell's life, but police said afterward that one of the officers screamed that Bell had his gun. Gonzales wrote in his report that his colleague sounded "almost as if he … was crying." Gonzales wrote that he had his gun to Bell's head when he pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. One of the other officers told Gonzales to shoot, police reported.
He pulled the trigger again, and a round ripped through Bell's head.
Within weeks, the Kenosha County district attorney ruled the shooting justified. Gonzales' department agreed. The shooting, however, has never faded into the past.
After his family filed a lawsuit, the city settled for $1.75 million. Bell's family has pointed to what it says are discrepancies in the official account of what happened. The pathologist who performed the autopsy wrote in an affidavit that elements of the officers' accounts of Bell's position and how Gonzales held his gun were forensically impossible. A search for Bell's DNA on the officer's gun and holster revealed no evidence that he touched it, court records show.
Earlier this year, spurred by Bell's family's activism, Wisconsin passed a law requiring that an outside agency investigate deaths caused by police.
His father, also named Michael Bell, said he worries about what Illinoisans who aspire to carry guns could learn from the man who shot his son. Bell said he doesn't think the shooting was justified, and he questions the department's version of what happened.
"I think that if somebody is going to be teaching this type of thing … he should be of the highest character," Bell said.
Gonzales could not be reached for comment, but Kenosha police Chief John Morrissey said Gonzales is a qualified officer and he believes the city was forthcoming about the shooting. Morrissey said he believes the officers and city would have won if the case had gone to trial.
Trainers banned
Trouble with trainers arose about a month after Illinois started issuing concealed carry permits in February, when hundreds of applicants were denied for taking classes that didn't meet the 16-hour in-person training mandate. The state has steadily added to its list of instructors banned for various reasons.
Instructor Sebastian Ghiles was banned in April, four months after he was charged with official misconduct and theft in Cook County. Ghiles, a Chicago Heights code enforcement inspector, is alleged to have taken proceeds from the resale of property stolen from a man's yard, a police report shows.
Ghiles, who could not be reached for comment, joins five other now-banned instructors who had given email addresses or phone numbers corresponding to the Oakbrook Terrace-based U.S. Investigations and Protection Agency.
The company fired Ghiles, said John Howard, a company director. Howard said some of the banned instructors didn't get concealed carry licenses and that the company maintains rigorous standards.
"We are a very credible agency," Howard said.
One issue with concealed carry training, Dart said, is that prospective applicants are left to sort through hundreds of trainers in the Chicago area. He notes that it would be difficult for a concealed carry applicant to learn of some issues in instructors' backgrounds.
The Illinois State Rifle Association's Pearson countered that it's up to pupils to do their research before signing on with an instructor.
Concealed carry instructors contacted by the Tribune generally declined to criticize fellow teachers. But they said a crucial element of training is teaching the judicious use of force. A person who wants to go out in public armed needs to consider the background of his or her potential trainer, said John Boch, a Bloomington-based trainer.
A prospective applicant, Boch said, needs to ask, "Is this someone I would want to testify on my behalf after a deadly force encounter?"
Tribune reporter Matthew Walberg contributed.
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