Altered by Design: How LaSalle’s Police Chief Rewrote History to Target a Political Critic

By Jamie Hicks | Hicks News | April 2025

In the months following the February 8, 2023 alarm incident at Carus Chemical’s Apollo Building, LaSalle Police Chief Michael Smudzinski did something that should raise alarms of its own:
He quietly altered his official police report — half a year after the fact — to frame a local activist as a potential terrorist.

Let that sink in.

This wasn’t a typo. This wasn’t an added clarification.
This was a calculated rewrite — made after Carus Chemical handed over a packet targeting the very activist who recorded and exposed the incident in the first place: me.

What Smudzinski Originally Wrote. In the original 19-page report, dated February 9, 2023, Smudzinski gave a standard account of events. He wrote about a fire alarm going off, a conversation with Carus employee Corey Peruba, and the general need to follow up.

Nowhere in that version did he suggest a crime had been committed.
Nowhere did he mention terrorism.
Nowhere did he say the incident posed a threat to public safety.

It was just another Carus alarm — one they routinely shut off without calling 911.

Fast forward to the 73-page version of the same report, dated October 12, 2023. That’s when a crucial — and highly inflammatory — sentence was added:

“I advised him that if it was pulled intentionally, that this could possibly be looked at as a terroristic act.”

That line doesn’t appear in the original. It was inserted months later, with a new approval stamp, tucked deep into the expanded report on page 38.

No new evidence was introduced. No new statements were taken.
It was simply a shift in narrative — one meant to escalate a non-criminal event into a felony-level accusation.

This wasn’t just bad police work — it was political targeting, plain and simple.

• The so-called “terroristic act” wasn’t even reported as a crime until after I posted about the incident on Facebook.

• The original report never justified criminal charges.

• The added language conveniently aligned with Carus Chemical’s efforts to discredit and silence me — a vocal critic exposing their dangerous facility near residential homes.

• There was no investigation, no interview with me, and no physical evidence supporting any allegation of a crime.

• Chief Smudzinski’s change wasn’t based on facts. It was based on pressure.

A Pattern of Retaliation

• The altered report didn’t exist in a vacuum. It became the foundation for:

• A fabricated narrative passed to Detective Brian Camenisch

• A seizure of my phone without due process

• Sealed warrants with no public explanation

• Continued denial of FOIA requests that could exonerate me
  
  This is how small-town corruption operates:
  Alter the paper trail. Weaponize the badge. Silence the critic.

Chief Smudzinski altered a public record to frame a private citizen — months after the fact, with no new evidence, and under the clear influence of a chemical company with political ties.

That’s not policing.
That’s conspiracy.

And now the public knows.

More coming on this story of a fake investigation with the help of the states attorney's office, many judges ,carus chemical , lasalle police, and Mayor GROVE.

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