Deadline looms for CPD Supt. David Brown in Red Line police shooting case

Chicago Police Supt. David Brown is on the clock.

The city’s top cop has until Dec. 29 to decide if two officers should face administrative charges for their roles in the shooting of an unarmed man on a busy Red Line platform earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office continues to investigate the shooting, which was captured by a passerby on video that went viral before the CPD issued its first statement on the matter.

“We think the state’s attorney’s office should be pursuing criminal charges against the officers,” said Andrew M. Stroth, one of the attorneys for Ariel Roman, the man shot by police. “We think the video speaks for itself, and we think the video supports actual charges from the state’s attorney’s office as it relates to those two officers.”

Shortly after 4 p.m. Feb. 28, Officer Melvina Bogard shot the 34-year-old Roman on a platform of the Grand Red Line station. Before the COVID-19 pandemic upended daily life, the Grand station was among the busiest in the CTA rail system, and the shooting occurred just as Friday evening rush was beginning.

Minutes before the shooting, Bogard and her partner, Officer Bernard Butler, both assigned to the CPD Mass Transit Unit, saw Roman walking between cars on a northbound Red Line train.

Roman got off the train at Grand and was followed by the two officers. Bogard and Butler tried to arrest him at the foot of the stairs leading up to the station’s main concourse, but Roman struggled with Butler and was eventually able to stand up. Video footage showed two deployed stun guns laying on the station’s floor.

As Roman regained his footing, Butler repeatedly told Bogard to shoot. She fired once at Roman while he stood just a few feet away at the base of the stairs. Roman ran up the escalator, and Bogard fired again.

Roman was wounded once in the hip and once in the buttocks. He was taken into custody and briefly faced resisting arrest and narcotics charges. Roman has undergone several surgeries, and one of the bullets is still lodged near his sciatic nerve, according to his attorneys.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability — the agency that investigates uses of force by CPD officers — sent its findings and recommendations to Brown in late September.

Those findings and recommendations were not made public, though it’s likely COPA called for severe punishments for both Bogard and Butler. Just days after the shooting, COPA suggested the department strip both officers of their police powers, a move carried out by then-Interim CPD Supt. Charlie Beck.

In the most serious police misconduct cases, the CPD superintendent has 60 days from the end of COPA’s investigation to decide whether to bring administrative charges against an officer. If the superintendent agrees with COPA, the officer is charged and faces an evidentiary hearing before the case is ultimately decided by the Chicago Police Board — a process that can take several years.

If the superintendent disagrees with COPA’s recommendations, a single member of the police board — chosen at random — decides whether the accused officer will face an evidentiary hearing. Those hearings are akin to trials, in which attorneys for both the CPD and the accused officers present evidence and testimony before a hearing officer, who acts as more of a referee than a judge.

Once evidentiary hearings are complete, police board members decide if the accused officer will face discipline.

In the case of Bogard and Butler, a COPA representative said Brown requested an extra 30 days to reach a decision about administrative charges. A CPD representative declined to comment about why the superintendent requested the extension.

“Chicago’s a very political city, and a lot of decisions, I think, are made with politics involved,” Greg E. Kulis, also one of Roman’s attorneys, said of Brown’s request for a time extension.

Less than two weeks after he was shot, Roman filed a federal lawsuit against Bogard, Butler and the city.

In late October, attorneys representing Bogard and Butler filed a motion for a limited stay in the civil case. Citing the officers’ Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, the officers’ attorneys asked the judge to prohibit Bogard and Butler from being deposed while the state’s attorney’s probe continues. The judge hasn’t ruled on the motion.

Though they have not been deposed, both officers have sat for interviews with the state’s attorney’s office, according to their lawyers.

A spokeswoman for the state’s attorney’s office said last week the shooting remained “under review.”