The head of Chicago’s police oversight agency has again pushed the city’s top cop to strip the police powers of four officers who were involved in the deadly gunfight that claimed the life of Dexter Reed, spurring protests and drawing a national spotlight earlier this year.
Andrea Kersten, chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, wrote in a letter to Police Supt. Larry Snelling late last month that her office hadn’t received a written response to her earlier request to strip the tactical officers of their powers.
Kersten noted that the officers had since been returned to “active duty status” in the Harrison District after being assigned to administrative duties for 30 days following the March 21 shootout.
A police spokesperson said that while those officers are technically listed as active, they remained on desk duties Tuesday.
A COPA spokesperson said the ball is now effectively in the police department’s court, but declined to comment further. The police spokesperson wouldn’t comment on the active investigation.
The exchange of gunfire started when Reed shot a fifth officer during a traffic stop in Humboldt Park, prompting the other cops to fire 96 shots in 41 seconds. Reed was struck 13 times, according to an autopsy.
Kersten’s earlier letter to Snelling, dated April 1, raised “grave concerns” about the use of deadly force and questioned whether police lied when they reported Reed was stopped for a seat belt violation given that his SUV’s windows were heavily tinted.
In a footnote to the letter, Kersten said COPA had another open investigation into a traffic stop involving the same officers less than a month earlier that also related to an alleged seat belt violation.
Records show the five officers involved in the shooting of Reed, including the officer who was shot, have been named in 41 complaints, many of them stemming from traffic stops.
Kersten’s letter was first obtained by the Sun-Times just hours after COPA released video of the shooting in early April. The release of the letter stoked a brewing feud between Snelling and Kersten that boiled over during a meeting of the Chicago Police Board less than a week later.
Snelling slammed Kersten’s lengthy account of the investigation as “misleading at best,” accusing her office of “framing the mind of the people” ahead of the video’s release.
“I’ve made no statements about it because I don’t want to poison the well when it comes to this shooting,” Snelling said, adding that COPA “doesn’t exist to create a bias” and warning that any possible impropriety “jeopardizes the integrity of that investigation.”
In a final dig, he criticized a specific media appearance Kersten made after the video release.
“You will not find me on the Stephen A. Smith Show,” referring to a podcast hosted by the ESPN commentator.
Snelling had previously said he wouldn’t speculate about the circumstances of the shooting until the officers provided official statements. Kersten noted in her latest letter that evidence in the case “now includes a compelled officer statement,” among other things.
“Due to the concerns raised in COPA’s original request,” Kersten wrote, “COPA is respectfully asking CPD to reconsider relieving the officers of their police powers pending the resolution of its investigation.”
Andrew M. Stroth, an attorney for Reed’s family, said he and the family “don’t understand why Supt. Snelling is not following the recommendation of COPA.”
“The family believes that COPA’s recommendation is fair and objective, and that the officers should be stripped based on the objective evidence on video in the Reed case,” Stroth said. “They failed policies and procedures set out by CPD, and Dexter Reed is no longer alive today because they failed to follow those policies.”
Tim Grace, the attorney representing the officers involved in the shooting, said his clients “are eager to provide their side of the incident to COPA.”
“However, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office needs to first complete their investigation to ensure there will be no charges,” Grace said. “Once again COPA — which has released videos, gone on national talk shows and clearly gave an opinion about the case before they completed the investigation — believes what they do is more important than what the Cook County state’s attorney’s office does.
“They need to stand down and let the prosecutors be the adults in the room and complete their investigation.”
