CPD video shows robbery suspect was shot, Tasered and cuffed

When Chicago police officers stopped a Lincoln Town Car suspected of being used in a McDonald’s robbery in 2011, the female driver allegedly tried to run over one of them at a gas station on the West Side, police said at the time.

The officer fired twice, hitting the woman in the chest and side, but she kept driving and came to a stop on an adjacent street. When she got out of the car, she was thrown to the ground, Tasered and handcuffed.

On Friday, police Supt. Eddie Johnson released a video of the incident recorded by a dashboard-mounted camera. Although the shooting was deemed justified, Johnson is launching a reinvestigation to determine whether officers used excessive force during their arrest, said a department spokesman.

In a statement, Johnson called the video “concerning.”

Two officers, who he did not name, have been placed on desk duty pending an investigation.

The video doesn’t show the encounter between the officer and the Lincoln Town Car in the gas station.

But police reports say the officer stepped out of his car after a wild chase and the driver, Tiffani Jacobs, accelerated toward him. The officer shot her in the chest and side.

The video shows Jacobs then pulling out of the station, driving onto the street adjacent to the gas station and stopping. She gets out of the car while an officer approaches with a gun pointed at her. He grabs her by the back of her jacket and throws her to the pavement.

Several other officers move in to help arrest Jacobs, blocking video of what happened next.

“After taking Jacobs to the ground, and believing Jacobs may have been armed, officers ordered her to show her hands,” a police report says. “Jacobs refused to comply with verbal direction from the arresting officers to show her hands. At that time officers stepped back and deployed Tasers to obtain control of Jacobs. Jacobs’ hands were subsequently secured and she was taken into custody. Officers determined she had been shot, placed [her] in an unmarked vehicle, and immediately called for an ambulance.”

It’s the latest in a string of videos of questionable police actions Johnson and the department have released since the Laquan McDonald video was made public in November.

That video showed Officer Jason Van Dyke fatally shooting the knife-wielding teen 16 times in 2014 as he walked away and later as he lay on the street. Outcry over the video prompted a Justice Department investigation of the department, the firing of Supt. Garry McCarthy and a murder charge against Van Dyke.

“As part of his pledge to rebuild trust between CPD and the community, upon taking office Superintendent Eddie Johnson began reviewing several internal affairs and IPRA cases concerning officer’s use of force,” the department said.

Jacobs was arrested at about 10:35 p.m. on May 25, 2011 outside a gas station near Madison and Kilbourn on the West Side.

Earlier that night, Jacobs drove an accomplice, Floyd May, to a McDonald’s at 5656 W. Irving Park Road, court records show.

Jacobs picked him up in a black Lincoln Town Car after he robbed the restaurant’s employees and customers of more than $400. Police spotted the getaway car and chased it. May jumped from the car, but Jacobs kept driving and tossed cash out of the window, according to court records.

Last year, Jacobs, 34, pleaded guilty to armed robbery and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

May, 43, is serving a 25-year prison sentence for armed robbery in the same case.

Jones’ mother, Sandra Jacobs-Jones, said she’s been waiting for the day the police would re-examine the case.

“Thank you, Jesus!” she said when she learned Johnson was going to release the video and put the officers on desk duty pending an investigation.

“When they arrested her, the police would not give me any information. I did not even know my daughter had been shot.”

Jacobs-Jones said her daughter is learning-disabled, but managed to graduate from Malcolm X College and was planning on traveling to the Bahamas to celebrate with friends the day after she was arrested.

“They beat her face in the ground,” Jacobs-Jones said. “She lost her teeth. I really felt like she was mistreated.”

Jacobs-Jones said her daughter met May on the Internet. He had just gotten out of prison for another armed robbery conviction, she said.

He was on parole when he robbed the McDonald’s in 2011.

“I was pretty sure she was afraid of the guy,” Jacobs-Jones said. “She is no armed robber. I knew this guy was trouble, but she was 30 years old — an adult — and what could I do? This guy came into her life and he destroyed her.”