By Andrew Schroedter
Officer John Poulos was off duty on the night of Aug. 31, 2013, and leaving a Lincoln Park sports bar owned by his family when he spotted a man apparently trying to break into a building from a second-floor back porch.
Poulos — who was cutting through an alley on his way home — identified himself as a cop, ordered Rickey Rozelle to come down and called 911, according to police records.
Poulos ended up shooting and killing Rozelle in a gangway in the 1900 block of North Lincoln Avenue. He told authorities Rozelle threatened to kill him and “turned toward [him] with a shiny, metallic object in or near his hand,” records show.
The Independent Police Review Authority found that Poulos did nothing wrong. And the officer was honored by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, which named Poulos its “officer of the month” in July 2014 for his actions involving Rozelle.
Now, more than a year after the case was closed, Rozelle’s sister Kenyatta Hill Cotton wants federal authorities to re-investigate the shooting and the way the case was handled by IPRA, the beleaguered city agency that investigates police shootings.
“There’s so many conflicting stories,” says Michael Goode, a lawyer representing Cotton in a wrongful-death lawsuit against the city and Poulos that claims deadly force was unnecessary, that Rozelle was unarmed and posed no imminent danger. “This needs to be looked at objectively.”
Poulos told investigators Rozelle came down the stairs from the second floor and charged him. The officer said he knocked Rozelle backward and that Rozelle tried to flee down a “completely dark” gangway but the path led to a locked door, according to police and IPRA records.
Rozelle “then turned toward [Poulos], at which time [Poulos] observed [Rozelle] holding a shiny object near his waist,” according to IPRA. “In fear of his safety, [Poulos] fired two rounds, striking [Rozelle] in the chest area.”
Poulos called 911.
“I’m an off-duty police officer,” he said, according to a 911 recording. “I just shot somebody.”
Asked about Rozelle’s condition, Poulos said, “He is on the ground. He refused to show me his hands.”
He later added, “He refused to show me his hands, and then he went into his pockets.”
No weapon was found on or near Rozelle — a felon with a history of mental problems, according to his sister’s attorney — though a wristwatch with a black band and chrome face was near his body.
IPRA records don’t say whether Poulos might have mistaken the watch for a weapon, nor whether Rozelle was holding it when he was shot. A black iPhone and a bloody box of thermometer probe covers also were found near the body, records show.
Poulos declined to comment.
Beside being cleared by IPRA, Poulos also was cleared of wrongdoing by an internal police investigation led by Detective Timothy McDermott, a white officer who was fired months later for posing for a photo as a hunter with a trophy catch — a black suspect with deer antlers placed on his head.
The gun that killed Rozelle was a revolver licensed to Poulos’ brother. Poulos told investigators his brother had given him the gun earlier that night for safekeeping. Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman, says Poulos’ use of the weapon didn’t violate any policy.
Though Poulos had just left Gamekeepers, a sports bar owned by his family, he told investigators he hadn’t been drinking, and tests administered more than three hours after the shooting were negative for alcohol and drugs, records show.
IPRA has been under fire since the court-ordered release of a police dashcam video in November that showed a white Chicago cop, Officer Jason Van Dyke, shoot Laquan McDonald 16 times on a Southwest Side street as the black teenager appeared to be walking away from him.
IPRA hasn’t released its findings in that shooting, but Van Dyke has been charged with first-degree murder in the death, which prompted outrage and resulted in the U.S. Justice Department being brought in to investigate the Chicago Police Department.
Though the Justice Department is looking broadly at the department’s policies and practices, Cotton wants the probe to include a review of her brother’s shooting, according to Goode.
Since 2007, IPRA has investigated more than 400 shootings by Chicago cops — and found only two officers were in the wrong.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s police accountability task force, formed after the release of the McDonald video, has recommended replacing IPRA with a new civilian oversight agency.
IPRA spokeswoman Mia Sissac says the agency stands by its findings in the fatal shooting of Rozelle by Poulos.
Andrew Schroedter is an investigator with the Better Government Association.
