A Chicago police officer has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol when she struck and killed a Texas woman last month outside the House of Blues in River North.
Tangie Brown, 40, faces counts of aggravated driving under the influence, unlawful use of communication device, reckless driving and other charges in the Dec. 7 crash.
Prosecutors said Brown’s blood alcohol level was .093 when she was tested about two hours after the crash. The legal limit in Illinois is .08.
Brown allegedly admitted to having three drinks earlier in the night. Sources said she was coming from a holiday party for the Near North police district. A police report showed responding officers didn’t offer her a blood alcohol test at the scene, the Sun-Times has reported.
She was assigned last month to the Alternate Response Section, a unit staffed by cops relieved of their police powers. She was added to the Cook County state’s attorney’s do-not-call list the day after the crash, meaning prosecutors will no longer ask her to testify in court.
Brown was off duty and had been attending a party with co-workers in the police department when she was seen going to a parking garage to get her car and driving away, prosecutors said.
As she was driving south on State Street in an Infiniti SUV, Brown said she tried to use her phone’s GPS, dropped it and reached to pick it up, according to prosecutors.
Brown told other officers on the scene and prosecutors that when she looked up, she saw she was going to strike a concrete median and swerved, causing her to overcorrect, jump the curb and strike a planter before hitting two women in the 300 block of North State Street.
Maria Schwab, 56, was walking on State Street with a 37-year-old co-worker while in town for a work outing with Amplify, an educational technology and publishing company, a company spokesperson and police said.
The younger woman was struck on her leg before Brown’s SUV struck and pinned Schwab against a fence, prosecutors said. Brown then allegedly reversed, causing Schwab to fall several feet onto a lower level patio.
Schwab was taken to a hospital and later died. An autopsy ruled that her death was caused by blunt force injuries from being struck by a car. The other woman who was hit was treated for minor injuries.
Brown called a co-worker and was still in the driver’s seat of her car when officers arrived on the scene. She also faces charges of failing to render aid, improper lane use and failure to reduce speed.
Brown turned herself in to police Monday and was taken into custody, according to an arrest report.
Brown lives in Bronzeville with her husband and two children, her attorney Tim Grace said. She has been an officer in the department since 2008 and grew up in Austin.
Prosecutors did not seek to detain Brown.
After the crash, a police supervisor retired while facing demotion for failing to respond.
Street Deputy Frederick Melean was charged with overseeing the response to the collision, but he didn’t show up to assume control of the scene, according to law enforcement sources. That means he didn’t notify the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs, so no one from the department came to administer a Breathalyzer test to Brown.
Melean, a longtime police official who previously served as deputy chief of Area One, tendered his resignation after it was clear he was being demoted, sources said. His retirement was effective Dec. 12, a police spokesperson said.
Attorneys for Schwab’s family said they planned to file a wrongful death suit against Brown and possibly others, saying they were investigating whether Brown was “overserved by bars and restaurants in River North.”
