A Kane County corrections officer accused in a lawsuit of unshackling the inmate who took his gun and held two Geneva hospital nurses hostage last month has been formally disciplined once in his nearly 18 years with the sheriff’s office, records show.
Officer Shawn Loomis was suspended, without pay, for 30 days in 2005 for taking possession of inmate property without authorization, according to disciplinary records provided by the sheriff’s office through a public records request.
Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Patrick Gengler said Loomis, hired in November 1999, has been on paid administrative leave following the May 13 hostage standoff at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva. The incident started when inmate Tywon Salters took a gun belonging to Loomis, one of several corrections officers assigned to shifts guarding him around the clock.
Salters, 21, was hospitalized for drinking liquid cleaner and eating plastic off a sandal from his jail uniform. He had been unshackled for about a half-hour May 13 when he moved on Loomis, somehow taking the officer’s 9mm handgun, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit alleges Loomis ran and hid in a room down the hall, while Salters, naked, found his way into an office where a nurse said he made her take off her clothes, physically and verbally abused her, threatened her and held her at gunpoint.
Salters later raped another nurse, who was also struck in the arm by the SWAT officer’s bullet that killed Salters, said attorney Sean P. Murray.
The nurses, along with their husbands and two other nurses affected by what they experienced that day, are suing Loomis, the Kane County sheriff’s office and APEX3 security in U.S. District Court, seeking compensatory damages, court costs, attorney fees and other relief.
A dozen years ago, under former Kane County Sheriff Kenneth Ramsey, Loomis took an unknown item, Gengler said.
In the old jail, Gengler said, when an inmate sent to prison didn’t have anyone to pick up whatever property the inmate arrived with, those items were thrown into a box.
If, for example, an inmate arrested in the summer wearing shorts and a T-shirt was released in the winter, they might be given warmer clothes from the box, he said.
From Gengler’s understanding, he said, Loomis was suspended for taking something from one of those boxes.
By doing so, Loomis violated a general order regulating conduct and office interest, according to a June 2005 notice informing Loomis he would be suspended.
That suspension is the only time Loomis has been formally disciplined by the sheriff’s office of professional standards, Gengler said.
“One incident over that course of time, it might be something you’re looking at right now, when it happens, and keep an eye on to make sure it doesn’t occur again,” Gengler said. “Discipline is supposed to correct the behavior.”
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