FOX LAKE, Ill. (AP) – A close-knit Illinois community is struggling to make sense of authorities’ announcement that a popular police officer staged his suicide to make it look like he died in the line of duty.

Signs hung in honor of Lt. Charles Joseph Gliniewicz after his death were taken down Wednesday around the village of Fox Lake. He’d worked there for years and had been known to many as “G.I. Joe.” On Wednesday, one sign was altered to label him instead, “G.I. Joke.”

Investigators said Wednesday morning that Gliniewicz killed himself, saying his theft of thousands of dollars from a police program for youth was about to be exposed.

The Washington, D.C.-based Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund said Gliniewicz’s name would no longer be etched onto a marble monument dedicated to fallen officers.