Because he permitted Jeffrey Dahmer to bring a 14-year-old victim back up to his apartment, he was sacked.
The terrifying case has gained new attention after Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story debuted on Netflix. One of the characters from the show that stands out is John Balcerzak, particularly because we see him as the cop who had the chance to help one of Dahmer’s victims, who was just 14 years old, but he actually left him back with Dahmer, who later murdered him.
Jeffrey Dahmer killed 17 young men and boys between 1978 and 1991, making him one of the most renowned serial killers in history. He frequently lured his victims back to his apartment, where he would drug them and then kill them. He was a cannibal who consumed various organs from his victims.
In 1991, Balcerzak arrested Dahmer – so where is he now?
In the Jeffrey Dahmer case, John Balcerzak made the arrest.
John A Balcerzak was born on April 13th, 1957, and is a former police officer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was the policeman who apprehended Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer. He visited Dahmer’s residence after Tracy Edwards reported that Dahmer had tried to kill him to the police. Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish, who worked together, were dubbed the “Dahmer cops.”
He was let go soon after Jeffrey Dahmer was apprehended, and he currently runs a bar.
But Dahmer and John Balcerzak had previously had encounters before his incarceration. John Balcerzak was fired by the police department in 1991, the year Dahmer was apprehended. This occurred after it was discovered that Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbor Glenda Cleveland had called the police several times to express her concerns about him and what he was doing in his home.
This was Konerak Sinthasomphone. He would’ve turned 46 in December.
In 1991, officer John Balcerzak handed 14 year-old Konerak back to a man he’d just escaped, despite two Black female witnesses begging him not to. That night, Konerak was killed by that same man – Jeffrey Dahmer pic.twitter.com/jhNl8A7uNt
— Sarah McGonagall (@gothspiderbitch) September 24, 2022
One episode in particular, which we watch unfold in the Netflix series, was Glenda calling the police after she saw Konerak Sinthasomphone, 14, fleeing Dahmer’s flat while covered in blood and after having been drugged. When Joseph Gabrish and John Balcerzak arrived on the scene, Dahmer informed them that the boy was his partner, an adult, and only inebriated. Dahmer killed Konerak after being given permission by the two officers to take him back to his apartment.
Both policemen were reportedly terminated in May 1991 after being found guilty of willful negligence. Given the information at hand at the time, Balcerzak continued to hold the opinion that he acted appropriately in the circumstances. “At the time, with the information we had—to this day, I think we did the appropriate thing, the best that we could,” he told AP News in his first interview after Dahmer’s arrest.
In 1994, a judge determined that John Balcerzak’s dismissal had been unjustified, and he was given his job back. Balcerzak and Gabrish each received their jobs back along with $55,000 in back pay.
According to reports, John Balcerzak retired in 2017. He reportedly still resides in Milwaukee and operates a bar. He has 65 years of age.
