CHICAGO — Prosecutors on Saturday revealed stunning allegations against a man, saying he repeatedly pointed a gun at a Chicago police officer because he wanted to be chased. Perhaps as stunning as the allegations is that the officer, despite being repeatedly threatened with a firearm, didn’t even remove her gun from its holster.
“Police are scared,” Malcolm Moffett-Brown allegedly taunted as he waved the gun at the cop from his driver’s seat.
The incident occurred on April 4, but Chicago cops didn’t arrest Malcolm Moffett-Brown to face charges until this week, Assistant State’s Attorney Alexander Konetzki said.
Last weekend, Moffett-Brown was arrested on unrelated allegations that he threatened people with a firearm inside the Division Street nightclub, She-nannigans.
‘You do not want to do that’
The officer Moffett-Brown is accused of threatening was sitting alone in her patrol car, working on paperwork from a just-completed traffic stop in the 2000 block of East 75th Street around 8 p.m.
She was in full uniform, and her car was a marked Chicago police unit when Moffett-Brown sped past her in his Mercedes, Konetzki said. Moments later, Moffett-Brown pulled up next to the officer’s patrol car and rolled down his passenger window.
He asked the cop why she didn’t pull him over for running the red light right in front of her, saying that he wanted to be chased, Konetzki alleged. The cop continued to work on her report.
But Moffett-Brown allegedly became more aggressive, telling the officer that “police are scared” to chase people.
He then pulled out a black handgun and pointed it at the officer, said Konetzki.
“You do not want to do that,” the officer replied as she activated a panic button to notify dispatchers that she was in distress.
Moffett-Brown continued to wave the gun around and point it at the officer, who activated her bodyworn camera but never unholstered her own gun, according to Konetzki.
After about a minute, Moffett-Brown drove away at high speed. The officer and other units tried to catch up with him, but they lost the car in traffic. Konetzki said surveillance cameras captured footage of the Mercedes speeding past the cop, turning around in a gas station, and pulling up beside her.
Officers saw the same Mercedes speeding through the area on March 10. They ran the car’s license plate, which came back to Moffett-Brown, and pulled him over, Konetzki said. Moffett-Brown rolled down his window, then sped away as the officers exited their car to talk with him.
The cop that Moffett-Brown is accused of threatening identified him in a photo lineup the next day.
Shenanigans at She-nannigans
Then, early last Saturday, police learned that someone was making threats while displaying a firearm at She-nannigans. Witnesses directed officers to Moffett-Brown, and the cops found a loaded handgun with an extended magazine in his waistband, according to Konetzki.
He was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and went home after posting a $2,500 bail deposit. Konetzki did not explain why he was not charged with the April incident while in custody.
His attorney said on Saturday that he attends truck driving school and works at a daycare center. Over the past month, Moffett-Brown has helped asylum seekers at three Chicago police stations, the attorney said.
Judge Barbara Dawkins ordered Moffett-Brown to pay a $10,000 bail deposit to be released on electronic monitoring. He is charged with aggravated assault of a peace officer.
Moffett-Brown is on first-time gun offender probation in DeKalb County which he received for allegedly having a gun in a backpack while he was a student at North Illinois University.
Chase enthusiasts
The Chicago Police Department introduced a new vehicle pursuit policy in August 2020. That order gives officers 11 pages of instructions to consider when deciding if a vehicle should be pursued.
It specifically prohibits Chicago officers from pursuing anyone for a traffic offense other than DUI. And it states explicitly that CPD will not discipline any member for ending a motor vehicle pursuit. If they continue a pursuit, though, they’ll be held responsible for anything that goes wrong.
Chicago has paid out tens of millions of dollars for lives lost and injuries caused by pursuits that ended with crashes. CPD supervisors have become so skittish about the possibility of something going wrong they’ve ordered cops to stop pursuing a car suspected of carrying wanted murderers.
In observance of the policy, cops downtown decided not to pursue a stolen BMW wanted for a series of armed robberies last May. Within an hour of that decision, men who emerged from the BMW shot and robbed Dakotah Earley in Lincoln Park.
But an attorney who investigated another robbery linked to the crew that nearly killed Earley found social media posts showing groups speeding away from Chicago cops who tried to pull them over. Videos like this one:
Last month, CWBChicago reported about an Instagram user who blatantly tries to lure cops into pursuits by committing flagrant violations in front of them as his video cameras are rolling.
Accompanied by hashtags like #highspeedchase, #comegetme, #willrun, and #dontchaseboys, UnknownDriver762 posts video highlights of failed police pursuits, successful stunts, and clips he receives from fans who spot him on the street.
For added drama, there’s a camera mounted on a pole on the Challenger’s trunk. It rotates to give exterior views of the action. Here are some highlights to give you a taste of what he’s all about (NSFW language):
Late last year, the Cook County Board of Commissioners approved money to buy a helicopter for the sheriff’s office. And the Chicago City Council approved funding for two new CPD helicopters.
If everything goes as planned, the new sheriff’s office helicopter should be operational by late summer or early fall.
Even after the new equipment is in place, the number of air units patrolling the city and county will pale in comparison to the Los Angeles area, which has 35 police helicopters, and the New York City Police Department, which is increasing its fleet from seven to nine, according to the Cook County sheriff’s office.
