CHICAGO — A man who repeatedly aimed a gun at an on-duty Chicago police officer because he wanted to be involved in a police pursuit has been given a two-year prison sentence. But Malcolm Moffett-Brown will not spend any time in prison because his sentence will be offset by credits earned by being on electronic monitoring while the case was pending.
Moffett-Brown was on first-time weapon offender probation for a previous gun case in DeKalb County when he rolled the dice by pointing a gun at a CPD officer in April 2023, officials said.
Almost as shocking as the allegations against Moffett-Brown is that officials said the officer, despite being repeatedly threatened with a firearm, didn’t even remove her gun from its holster.
The officer he was 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, prosecutors 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, prosecutors 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, officials claimed.
“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 body-worn camera but never unholstered her own gun, according to prosecutors.
After about a minute, Moffett-Brown sped away. The officer and other units tried to catch up with him, but they lost the car in traffic. The cop that Moffett-Brown is accused of threatening identified him in a photo lineup the next day.
Two months later, officers apprehended Moffett-Brown following allegations that he had threatened people with a firearm inside the Division Street nightclub, She-nannigans. Witnesses directed officers to Moffett-Brown, and the cops found a loaded handgun with an extended magazine in his waistband, according to prosecutors.
Last week, Moffett-Brown pleaded guilty to aggravated assault of a peace officer and aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. Judge Diana Kenworthy handed him two years on each count, to be served concurrently. A more serious charge he faced, being a felon in possession of a firearm, was dropped by prosecutors.
Records show he was taken to Stateville Correctional Center for processing last Tuesday, and he went home the same day. He’ll be on parole until May 19.
Moffett-Brown was on first-time gun offender probation in DeKalb County 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 explicitly states 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 in May 2022. 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 year, CWBChicago reported about an Instagram user who blatantly tried to lure cops into pursuits by committing flagrant violations in front of them as his video cameras were rolling. Accompanied by hashtags like #highspeedchase, #comegetme, #willrun, and #dontchaseboys, UnknownDriver762 posted video highlights of failed police pursuits, successful stunts, and clips he receives from fans who spot him on the street.
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