Master skater Padron returned to thin home ice, despite long history

Jesse Padron has been a cloud over the Elgin Police Department for so long, it now seems he must have brought his own rainmaker.

Hired in 1988, he managed to work about five years before embarking on an enigmatic career as confusing as it has been aggravating.

I've never quite been able to decide if he was a sly boots, plotting long into each night new ways to aggravate authority figures, or if he was a free spirit who'd mysteriously found himself in a paramilitary organization to which he was unsuited.

He has been honored for his police work numerous times, commended by residents and active in charitable activities like holiday turkey and gift giveaways.

He hasn't stolen cash from the police evidence locker, been inclined to bash heads first and ask questions later or expected to be paid without having to do any work. Other Elgin officers were involved in those areas.

Nevertheless, Padron has been a constant problem for the department for a decade and a half, a major aggravation to three police chiefs familiar with his persistent disregard of rules, policies and orders.

He was suspended in 1994 by then-Police Chief Chuck Gruber for 30 days for lying on the witness stand to protect an informant and for three days for failing to show up as a witness in a drug case in 1995.

"Fire him now and save your department from further embarrassment," City Attorney Michael Gehrman told the fire and police commission in the 1995 suspension hearing. "This guy should be fired and he should be fired at this opportunity."

He wasn't fired, a decision the city has rued more than once since. He was back in trouble in 1999, this time admitting to fixing a ticket for an informant. He was reassigned by then-Police Chief William Miller from the detective division to the patrol division in 2000 after his credibility was increasingly questioned on the witness stand.

Finally, he was fired by Police Chief Lisa Womack last year in connection with a retail theft investigation and his subsequent disregard of orders not to leave his home, contact retail store employees or appear at the police station unescorted. As usual, he admitted he did all three, but had an excuse for each. Two lines in the city's arbitration argument defined its frustrating experience with Padron.

"Padron stated he had never stolen anything in his life. He then admitted that when he was 17, he pled (sic) guilty to retail theft, but stated that because the charge was vacated, he should not be considered to have lied about not stealing before."

That is pure Jesse Padron. Always walking the edge and conjuring up plausible if hard-to-buy arguments. And once again, he was saved in the end. This time his savior was arbitrator Jack Cerone, who ruled in favor of Padron's argument that he'd been fired unjustly. Cerone ruled the city hadn't justified the firing and ordered Padron reinstated. But he wasn't to get back pay or benefits, making his punishment a one-year suspension in effect.

Cerone clearly understood the city's frustration and Padron's aggravating behavior.

In published accounts, he warned Padron that he was "on thin ice, and the sun is shining."

But Cerone couldn't know Padron is a master skater. Or that the cloud he brought with him seems to keep the thin ice from melting to liquid, leaving a tiny layer just strong enough to keep him afloat.