Gunman found guilty of murdering CPD Cmdr. Paul Bauer

Shomari Legghette, 46, was found guilty on all counts of murder and armed violence charges. The jury also found that Legghette knew Bauer was a police officer when he shot him in a downtown stairwell in February 2018.

SHARE Gunman found guilty of murdering CPD Cmdr. Paul Bauer
Shomari Legghette, right, listens to his guilty with his attorney Scott Kamin at his murder trial at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, Friday, March 13, 2020.

Shomari Legghette, right, listens to his guilty with his attorney Scott Kamin at his murder trial at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, Friday, March 13, 2020.

Antonio Perez/pool/Chicago Tribu

A Cook County jury Friday found four-time felon Shomari Legghette guilty of the 2018 murder of Chicago Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer.

Seated in the front-row courtroom seat she had occupied for most of the trial, Bauer’s widow, Erin Bauer, showed little reaction as a clerk read off guilty verdicts on each of the six counts against 46-year-old Legghette.

Legghette, standing several feet from from Bauer’s family and rows of CPD officers, showed no emotion when the verdicts were read. He faces 45 years to life in prison.

Bauer’s family issued a statement, thanking the prosecution team, witnesses to the crime and the jury.

“Today is a bittersweet day for everyone who loved Paul,” the statement from the family read. “We are so happy and relieved with the verdict, but we are overwhelmed with sadness that he is no longer with us.”

Jurors took three hours to reach their decision after seven days of testimony, which included video evidence and a cabbie’s account of Bauer chasing after Legghette through the Loop in broad daylight.

Erin Bauer, left, the widow of slain Chicago police Cmdr. Paul Bauer, listens in during closing statements for Shomari Legghette at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, Friday, March 13, 2020.

Erin Bauer, left, the widow of slain Chicago police Cmdr. Paul Bauer, listens in during closing statements for Shomari Legghette at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, Friday, March 13, 2020.

Chicago Tribune/Pool

Legghette’s defense hinged on whether jurors would believe his version of what happened in the 30 seconds or so after he and 53-year-old Bauer tumbled out of sight into a stairwell and gunshots rang out.

Making the case to convict Legghette of first-degree murder, Assistant State’s Attorney John Maher pointed out that the two men were in the stairwell near the Thompson Center for 25 seconds, and that Legghette was larger and stronger than the Near North District commander. The first of six gunshots that hit Bauer, Maher said, was to the chest, and another shot hit Bauer on the inner forearm — indicating Bauer was facing Legghette and holding his handcuffs.

“Outmuscled, outsized, outgunned. Commander Bauer is down there 25 seconds before [Legghette] pulled the trigger. His radio squawking, his cuffs out,” Maher said. “When those cuffs came out, Legghette knew he was going back, and that was not going to happen. So he [Legghette] shot him down.”

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx hugs Assistant State’s Attorney Risa Lanier in the lobby of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse after Shomari Legghette was found guilty of murdering Chicago Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer, Friday afternoon, March 13, 2020.

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx hugs Assistant State’s Attorney Risa Lanier in the lobby of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse after Shomari Legghette was found guilty of murdering Chicago Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer, Friday afternoon, March 13, 2020.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Defense attorney Scott Kamin said Legghette was a small-time drug dealer who made a habit of wearing body armor and carrying a pistol as protection against rivals. Kamin had pinned responsibility for the deadly encounter on Bauer, who escalated the pursuit of Legghette after other officers had spotted him urinating on a column on Lower Wacker Drive.

Legghette didn’t realize Bauer was a police officer even as he chased him, Kamin maintained, arguing that the police veteran’s badge and other identifiers were concealed by his winter coat.

“It wasn’t Commander Bauer’s job to work a beat, to chase after people,” Kamin said. “He forgot that he didn’t appear as a police officer… they would see him as a person using violence.”

Prosecuting attorney John Maher gives his closing statement during the murder trial of Shomari Legghette on March 13, 2020, at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.

Prosecuting attorney John Maher gives his closing statement during the murder trial of Shomari Legghette on March 13, 2020, at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.

Chicago Tribune/pool

In opening arguments, Kamin said Legghette would take the stand to describe how Bauer pulled him down the stairs and put him in a chokehold, prompting Legghette to draw his gun. But the defense rested on Thursday with Legghette declining to testify, a decision Kamin told reporters likely doomed the self-defense argument.

“It definitely hurts not to be able to show the evidence that we had anticipated showing,” Kamin said after court Friday. “I couldn’t give the detailed account that I wanted…nobody knows just what happened down there.”

Shomari Legghette, right, listens to his attorney Scott Kamin’s closing statements during his trial at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, Friday, March 13, 2020.

Shomari Legghette, right, listens to his attorney Scott Kamin’s closing statements during his trial at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, Friday, March 13, 2020.

Chicago Tribune/Pool

Assistant State’s Attorney Risa Lanier disagreed, saying there was “quite a lot of evidence” against Legghette.

“Now the healing can begin,” she said.

The Latest
Glass-facade buildings can disorient birds in flight. The city is expected to update and revise rules for new developments and rehabbed buildings next month. But bird groups say the proposed guidelines need to be mandatory.
The man was shot in the left eye area in the 5700 block of South Christiana Avenue on the city’s Southwest Side.
Most women who seek abortions are women of color, especially Black women. Restricting access to mifepristone, as a case now before the Supreme Court seeks to do, would worsen racial health disparities.
The Bears have spent months studying the draft. They’ll spend the next one plotting what could happen.
Woman is getting anxious about how often she has to host her husband’s hunting buddy and his wife, who don’t contribute at all to mealtimes.