CHICAGO — When prosecutors dropped criminal charges this week against an Oak Lawn police officer accused of using excessive force to arrest a 17-year-old boy, it was the latest in a growing list of victories for cops accused of wrongdoing by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
“After a thorough review, we concluded that the evidence is insufficient to meet our burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt to move forward with the prosecution of this case,” the state’s attorney’s office said in a written statement.
CWBChicago reported Thursday that Illinois State Police documents showed prosecutors rushed to get a grand jury indictment of Oak Lawn Police Officer Patrick O’Donnell just one day before the state police were scheduled to conduct a comprehensive review of O’Donnell’s case to determine if the agency supported criminal charges.
In one report, an ISP investigator wrote that “not discussing [an] investigation with [ISP’s Public Integrity Task Force] before charging an officer has never happened in the last 20 years of PITF investigations.”
Retired Riverside Police Chief Tom Weitzel called the decision to prosecute O’Donnell “outrageous and unprecedented in my experience as a police officer.”
“The fact [former Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx] chose not to follow the investigators’ advice suggests that she had made her decision before the investigation was complete, effectively using her investigators to justify her conclusion,” said Weitzel. “Moreover, the involvement of her investigators [in securing the grand jury indictment] raises concerns about a potential conflict of interest.”
Just last month, a Chicago cop accused of improperly seizing and inventorying firearms while on patrol was found not guilty of all charges.
In a particularly high-profile and racially charged case, Foxx’s office charged CPD Officer Bruce Dyker in June 2022 with aggravated battery and official misconduct after viral videos showed him struggling with a Black woman who was walking her dog after hours at North Avenue Beach. The state’s attorney’s office dropped the entire case a year later.
In another incident caught on video, Sgt. Christopher Liakopoulos and Officer Ruben Reynoso were charged with shooting an unarmed man in Pilsen in 2022. Judge Lawrence Flood acquitted both men in September.
“The fact that the Cook County State’s Attorney has been charging police officers with serious criminal offenses and not winning in court means a great deal,” said Weitzel. “It means they did not have the evidence, plain and simple, which means that the case preparation was lackluster at best.”
Weitzel believes prosecutors pursued weak cases to score political points.
“Kim Foxx took ‘defund the police’ to a new level by trying to ‘re-imagine policing’ by charging police officers with crimes when they were not justified in doing so. She and her office staff were more interested in gaining national notoriety… earning her a national platform for her agenda.”
Other cases prosecutors filed against cops, only to later drop the charges or lose in court, include:
- CPD Lt. Wilfredo Roman was found not guilty of shoving a flashlight between a teenager’s buttocks while arresting the boy, who was suspected of carjacking.
- Sgt. Michael Vitellaro gained widespread attention after a video captured him pinning a teenage boy to the ground, mistakenly believing the teen had stolen his son’s bike. The boy was not involved, and prosecutors charged Vitellaro with battery and official misconduct. Judge Paul Pavlus acquitted Vitellaro in a bench trial, saying he did not believe the boy and his friends provided credible testimony.
- Prosecutors charged officer Christopher Hillas with official misconduct and aggravated battery in 2022, saying he punched a handcuffed man in the groin. The situation, according to Hillas’ attorney, was a misunderstanding that resulted from the men bumping heads. An embarrassed state’s attorney’s office had to drop the case within weeks after a grand jury refused to indict Hillas.
- Melvina Bogard, charged with shooting an unarmed man as he fled from a physical altercation with her partner on the Grand Red Line platform, was found not guilty.
- Angel Escobedo, a CPD officer accused of threatening two off-duty officers with a gun during an early-morning altercation in Roscoe Village in 2021, was found not guilty in a bench trial by Judge Donald Panarese.
- Earlier this year, a former Chicago cop was found not guilty of killing his girlfriend while he was on the force in 2021.
Asked to name cases where he believes Foxx’s office properly pursued criminal charges, Weitzel pointed to allegations that two Chicago cops and a former prosecutor conspired to collect more than $100,000 in overtime pay. The retired chief also pointed to the charging of an off-duty sheriff’s deputy in connection with an off-duty hit-and-run that left a jogger badly injured.
Weitzel suggested that Foxx’s successor, Eileen O’Neill Burke, who took office on December 2, should take steps to rebuild the relationship between prosecutors and the county’s police agencies.
“She should appoint a Cook County police agency liaison to her cabinet-level staff,” said Weitzel. “This would go a long way to rebuilding trust and confidence between police agencies and the state attorney’s office.”
O’Neill Burke started on the right foot in Weitzel’s estimation.
“She impacted the law enforcement community on her first day. She immediately appointed experienced prosecutors to positions of authority and the same prosecutors are the decision makers. She explicitly stated what her initiatives would be, and they were all aimed at reducing violence in Cook County by gaining the public trust in her enforcement of the public safety initiatives.”
You can contact CWBChicago and provide anonymous tips by email: [email protected]
