The Chicago Police Department may have another vacancy to fill after an expletive-spewing recruit walked out of the academy Monday when a sergeant fetched a breathalyzer to test his sobriety, according to a CPD memo shared with CWBChicago.
“F*** you BRO!” the plebe told a sergeant repeatedly as he “rapidly walked away” from the training center, 1300 West Jackson, around 6:50 a.m.
In a so-called “To/From” memo about the incident, a sergeant wrote that he was welcoming a new recruit class outside the Timothy J. O’Connor Training Center when he saw the recruit “wearing a suit, carrying a black duffle bag heading toward the front entrance doors.”
“The individual was swaying to his left and then to his right as he approached the front doors, the individual was losing his balance and footing, making his walking choppy and uneven,” the report said.
Once inside the building, the recruit “continued to lose his balance.”
A second sergeant ordered the man to sit down and asked if he was OK.
“What!?” replied the recruit, according to the memo.
At that point, one sergeant asked another to fetch a portable breathalyzer.
Noting the recruit’s “red eyes and dilated pupils,” the sergeant who stayed with the recruit asked “if he was ok? and if he had been drinking? or under the influence of an intoxicating compound?”
The recruit refused to answer and “quickly stood up, turned, and began exiting from the building at a fast pace.”
“STOP!” the sergeant said he ordered. “STOP WALKING AWAY!”
“It was at this point when [the recruit] was quickening his pace that he began to turn to [the sergeant] and state verbatim, ‘f*** you BRO !'”
He repeated that to the sergeant “on the public way multiple times as he continued to rapidly walk away.”
The recruit’s status with the department in light of the allegations is unknown.
Another recruit arrested
Another Chicago police recruit is in hot water, too, charged with battery for allegedly beating up a CPD hiring prospect outside a Southwest Side funeral home on June 20.
A 23-year-old suburban man who is “undergoing the recruitment process” was speaking with two women in the 5700 block of South Pulaski when a man wearing a ski mask walked up behind him and punched him in the head, a CPD arrest report said. The attacker allegedly kicked the victim when he fell to the ground.
Witnesses told police they knew who the assailant was because they recognized the full tattoo sleeve on his arm, according to the report.
D’Angelo Silvar, 21, was arrested at the academy three days later on a simple battery charge.
Silvar warned the victim that, should he succeed in getting hired by CPD, “he is going to beat the f*** out of him” when he sees him at the police academy, the arrest report said.
The document contains conflicting information about the altercation. In one section, it says the suburban man was balled up on the ground after getting punched. But it says another man told officers that Silvar and the alleged victim were both fighting when they fell into the witness’ car door.
Silvar’s status with the police department is not known. He’s due back in court on July 17.
A ‘conveyor belt’
CPD has 11,728 total officers this month, up 24 from last month but down 1,625 from its most recent high point in January 2019.
The city has loosened hiring standards, hoping to draw more recruits. And police brass and recently-departed Mayor Lori Lightfoot frequently claimed that the police academy was churning out newly-minted cops to replenish the ranks.
In 2021, the Sun-Times claimed Lightfoot was launching a “conveyor belt of classes” to fill police vacancies.
CPD had 13,302 officers when Lightfoot took office in May 2019, about 12% more cops than the city has today.
While the number of cops is down, the number of major crimes being reported is way up: 39% higher this year than the same time last year, according to CPD’s weekly statistics snapshot. Major crimes are up 56% compared to pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019.