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Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.

Integrity Task Force Turns Over Investigation

Activists outside of Rockford City Hall.

The Winnebago-Boone County Integrity Task Force submitted its investigation into the shooting of an unarmed man by a Rockford police officer to the Winnebago County State’s Attorney. 

 

 

It’s been just over a month since the shooting of Tyris Jones by Rockford police officer Dominik McNiece. Winnebago County State’s Attorney Marilyn Hite Ross said her office will now review the task force’s completed investigation. 

 

“Information regarding the details of a criminal investigation if charges are filed, will not be released to the public because those rules don't allow us to do that.” She continued. “So at this time, but I can tell you since I have not reviewed the investigator materials yet that none of that information will be released at this time.”

 

The Winnebago County Sheriff’s Department also announced a new set of charges against Jones, bringing his bond up to $2 million. The charges are related to an incident on September 17th in which authorities found a loaded gun on a road.

 

The state's attorney said there’s no timeline or end date in sight for the investigation. She said, “Any criminal investigation takes as long as it takes for the investigators to follow up on every lead of information that they have received.” 

 

  • Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco is a 2020 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project which is a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms.
Juanpablo covers environmental, substandard housing and police-community relations. He’s been a bilingual facilitator at the StoryCorps office in Chicago. As a civic reporting fellow at City Bureau, a non-profit news organization that focuses on Chicago’s South Side, Ramirez-Franco produced print and audio stories about the Pilsen neighborhood. Before that, he was a production intern at the Third Coast International Audio Festival and the rural America editorial intern at In These Times magazine. Ramirez-Franco grew up in northern Illinois. He is a graduate of Knox College.