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| (L to R) Sgt. Andy Dakuras; Officer J. Norwood Jr; and Officer J. Rodriguez III | Chicago Police Memorial Foundation |
An 18th District police sergeant is being recognized for rescuing a woman from her “altered state” boyfriend who was found choking and biting flesh from the woman’s face in a Streeterville apartment.
The Chicago Police Memorial Foundation (CPMF) today named Sgt. Andy Dakuras and two patrolmen as the charity’s officers of the month.
Around 9:45 p.m. last June 23rd, Dakuras responded to a “person calling for help” dispatch in the 400 block of North McClurg. Stepping off of the elevator, Dakuras heard the 27-year-old victim crying, “Please help me. He is killing me. Please help.”
Dakuras forced his way through the reinforced door and found the woman sitting on the kitchen floor with her boyfriend choking her from behind with his forearm and biting the flesh from her cheek and face, the charity said in a press release.
The sergeant realized that the boyfriend was in an “altered state of mind” as he tried various tactics to free the woman from the man’s grip. Eventually, Dakuras grabbed his pepper spray and discharged the entire can into the boyfriend’s mouth, which caused the man to loosen his grip on the woman and lean back on the floor.
“Not only had the man been eating at her face, he had bit her ear halfway off,” CPFM said.
The boyfriend continued to struggle as Dakuras tried to handcuff him. At one point during the six-minute fight, the man bit down on Dakuras’ forearm. The boyfriend kept his mouth clamped on the sergeant’s arm despite Dakuras’ attempts to free himself by pushing on pressure points, including the man’s eye sockets.
Eventually, Officers J. Norwood Jr and J. Rodriguez III arrived in the apartment and helped the sergeant detain the boyfriend. They later learned that during the struggle with Dakuras, the man was trying to crawl to another room where he had stored a loaded handgun, the foundation said.
The man, his girlfriend, and Dakuras were all treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Court records show the boyfriend, Gregory Jackson, was charged with three counts of aggravated battery of a police officer; aggravated battery – strangulation; and resisting police.
In a bench trial overseen by Judge Thomas Byrne on May 8th, Jackson was found not guilty on one count of aggravated battery of a police officer. Byrne found him not guilty of all other charges by reason of insanity.
Byrne granted Jackson conditional release and ordered him to undergo five years of outpatient mental health services and to meet other requirements.
