UI officer assigned to search for missing student no longer with department

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URBANA — The officer who was placed on leave last spring pending an investigation into his handling of a case involving a missing student who was later found dead has resigned from the University of Illinois Police Department.

Malik Harrison left the force last month, UI spokeswoman Robin Kaler confirmed with The News-Gazette on Wednesday. He was put on paid administrative leave in April, after an internal investigation determined he violated two department policies while handling the search for Akul Dhawan, 18, on Jan. 20.

A copy of an internal UI police investigation report obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed previously unreported details that provide a more complete picture of the officer’s handling of the incident.

The internal investigation found that Harrison did not get out of his car during the seven minutes he spent physically searching for Mr. Dhawan in the early-morning hours of that frigid Saturday in January, never radioed for assistance from other officers, and finished his shift without writing a report notifying superiors that Mr. Dhawan was still missing.

The internal report also showed that Harrison contested his 30-day suspension as “excessive” in a May grievance, but UI police Chief Matt Ballinger cited Harrison’s 13 prior infractions over the past three years, “this infraction being the most serious,” in rejecting his request for back pay.

Kaler emphasized that there were many critical factors that preceded the search for Mr. Dhawan, including that his friends gave police incomplete information about where he was last seen and how much alcohol he had consumed and that he was not wearing a winter coat.

Had those details and others been communicated to police, Kaler said, “it would have provided additional information that would have impacted the urgency and approach to the search.”

Kaler said Harrison informed UI police that he was resigning because he was taking another job. Harrison did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

“Although the total context is important to understand the circumstances contributing to Mr. Dhawan’s death, nothing can diminish the magnitude or tragedy of his loss, and the university continues to extend its condolences to Mr. Dhawan’s family,” Kaler said.

In February, Champaign County Coroner Stephen Thuney determined that hypothermia was the official cause of Mr. Dhawan’s accidental death, with acute alcohol intoxication and prolonged exposure to extremely cold temperatures as significant factors.

Worried about repercussions

On Jan. 20, Mr. Dhawan’s parents filed a citizens complaint against UI police, accusing the department of “gross negligence” in searching for their late son. Assistant Chief Joe McCullough was assigned on Jan. 30 to investigate the complaint and author a report.

McCullough interviewed two of Mr. Dhawan’s friends, who recalled drinking with him and a group of students around 10 p.m. Jan. 19 in a room in the Busey-Evans Residence Hall before the group decided to go to an event at the Canopy Club, less than 400 feet away.

The wind chill that evening was nearly minus-15, but the group left their jackets in the residence hall due to the venue not having a coat check. Not long after arriving at the club, they left, and Mr. Dhawan bought a bottle of alcohol from a liquor store on Green Street, according to the investigation.

The employee who sold him the alcohol — Piyushkumar A. Patel, 42, of Mahomet — was sentenced Sept. 27 to one year of conditional discharge after pleading guilty to selling alcohol to a minor — Mr. Dhawan, a freshman engineering student from California.

While the rest of the group re-entered the club around 11:25 p.m., Mr. Dhawan wasn’t allowed back inside due to having the bottle. He was twice offered rides home after parting from his friends, but refused both times, even exiting one of the ride-hailing cars that had been called for him after someone helped him into it, Kaler said.

After realizing Mr. Dhawan was no longer outside the venue and not answering his phone, the friends searched campus and eventually called 911 at 1:22 a.m. to report him missing and last being seen in the area of Busey-Evans.

Asked why they didn’t initially tell police Mr. Dhawan had left the Canopy Club or was drinking on the way there, one of the friends told McCullough they were worried about mentioning the extent of his drinking due to potential repercussions.

‘They always turn up’

Harrison was assigned the missing-person call at 1:27 a.m. and phoned the reporting person back a minute later, but didn’t activate his body camera to record the call. The dash camera on his squad car, a new addition to the fleet, had also not yet been installed.

Interviewed by McCullough, Harrison said the reporting person “lacked urgency” during the call. He could not recall whether the word “missing” was used or not, and said it was reported to him by a person slurring his words that Mr. Dhawan “may” be intoxicated.

Harrison called the reporting person back at 1:51 a.m. to get a physical description of Mr. Dhawan, according to the investigation, but otherwise could “not recall” what he did while he remained parked in his squad car for 23 minutes before driving to the area of Busey-Evans.

Harrison then drove a route starting at Busey-Evans to Presby Hall, Mr. Dhawan’s dorm, from 1:57 a.m. to 2:04 a.m., but saw no sign of the missing student from his car. Besides checking his iCard activity and calling Mr. Dhawan’s phone, Harrison engaged in no other search tasks at that time, the report found.

Notably, Harrison typed Mr. Dhawan’s information directly into a computerized dispatch ticket. He did not use the radio to communicate to other officers Mr. Dhawan’s physical description or that he was missing.

“So that was ease of convenience for me,” Harrison said when McCullough asked why he didn’t use the radio. “Sometimes I use the radio. Recently, more times than not, I just update dispatch ticket. I know if people are on the call, they can see that information.”

Sometime around 2:10 a.m., Harrison reported on the radio being “10-8” from the missing-person call, i.e., available for service.

One of Mr. Dhawan’s friends called Harrison back at 2:57 a.m. to report he was still missing. Harrison obtained Mr. Dhawan’s roommate’s number, then called and texted him, but the roommate didn’t reply until 9:37 a.m. that Mr. Dhawan still wasn’t back in his room.

Harrison called local hospitals around 4:40 a.m., to no avail. At 7 a.m., he ended his shift. Harrison did not write a report to notify the incoming sergeant that Mr. Dhawan was still missing or update any other officers in person, the investigation found.

“My belief at the time that I left (was) that Dhawan was going to turn up. In most cases, you know, they always do. They’re either stumbling into their apartment or their phone has been dead or they’re at a friend’s house, or, something or other, but they always turn up,” Harrison told McCullough.

Mr. Dhawan was found dead by a university employee around 11 a.m. Jan. 20 on a set of steps less than 400 feet from both Busey-Evans Hall and the Canopy Club.

UI police policy violations

A UI police lieutenant who was working that night stated that standard practice is to share information about a missing person over the radio and by dispatch, and to notify supervisors at the end of an officer’s shift if someone is still missing, regardless of the severity of the circumstances.

Likewise, the sergeant on duty when Mr. Dhawan’s body was discovered said Harrison and other officers had previously been made aware that they were expected to complete written reports before finishing their shifts, and that Harrison did not ask for permission to hold his over until the next shift.

The sergeant told McCullough that if multiple people were working on the missing-person case, then officers could have conducted a grid search, re-interviewed the reporting people separately for any odd statements and pinged the location of Mr. Dhawan’s uncharged phone.

Pursuant to UI police Policy 317, Mr. Dhawan was still considered “high risk,” regardless of the fact the reporting person minimized his physical condition, altered his initial location and expressed a “lack of urgency” in their voice.

That’s because Mr. Dhawan was missing under unknown circumstances and was under 21, and it was extremely cold outside. The policy also states that no missing-person report is “routine” and high-risk conditions only require an expedited response for the same search responsibilities.

Harrison violated two subsections of the policy in that he did not respond to the area as soon as possible, did not consult with a supervisor, and did not enter Mr. Dhawan into a law-enforcement database or attempt to contact a family member to find out the last known location of Mr. Dhawan’s phone.

Harrison also violated two subsections of Policy 323 in leaving his shift without preparing any documentation about Mr. Dhawan other than a dispatch ticket for other officers and failing to consult with a supervisor about a delay in a report.

The internal report also revealed that, in the past five years, Harrison received a two-day suspension for failing to adhere to “department regulations" and was reprimanded three times for failing to report to an assigned detail and another time for attempting to use exhausted leave benefits.

When asked if he would have done anything different, Harrison told the investigator that he would would have checked the Canopy Club if he had known Mr. Dhawan was there and used that as a reference to change “my whole thought process when it comes to the route I’m going to take.”

“I would have spent a little bit more time around that area looking around," he said. "If I could have done anything differently ... I also would have checked cameras ... just to see if I could spot him, because it could have changed things."

“If I was given the full information about the level of his intoxication, that would have changed the severity of the call,” he added. “Because it is not like, ‘He could be slurring his words’; it’s like, ‘No, this man is highly intoxicated.’ And if I would have known just the places that they frequented, that would have expanded my search as well.”