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Responding to the police superintendents' recommendation that the shootings were "unprovoked and unjustified," a divided police commission in Chicago voted 5-3 on Thursday night to clear a police officer of any wrongdoing by shooting a teenager deadly. at the back of the head during a foot chase almost six years ago.
This decision comes a little over a year after the city police monitoring agency took the rare step of looking for the officer at fault and recommending that he be fired for excessive use of the strength to shoot Dakota Bright. The 15-year-old was not armed when he was shot, but the police found a .22-caliber revolver in a front yard of the scene of the lawsuit, authorities said.
While the Independent Police Control Authority had found inconsistencies in Officer Brandon Ternand's account of the November 2012 shootings, the police commission described his testimony as "credible and persuasive." "and praised him as" a highly decorated and respected tactical officer with years of experience ".
The majority of council members said that they relied heavily on "his reputation for honesty", based on the testimony of his partner, other officers present this afternoon, his wife and Deputy Chief Kevin Johnson, who named Ternand as one of the top 10 officers. he never supervised.
The Chicago Tribune has previously reported that 23 complaints filed against Ternand between mid-December 2010 and mid-December 2014 placed him among the dozen top officers for the largest number of complaints among the 12,000 members of the police during this period. According to the records, Ternand was punished for none of these allegations, ranging from excessive force to illegal search.
READ MORE: A Chicago policeman convicted of killing a teen has a history of lawsuits and complaints
The 11-year-old veteran, who has worked throughout his career in violence-ridden southern and western areas, has also been cited in half a dozen lawsuits, including that of his mother. from Bright, which cost the taxpayers of the city $ 1.1. million.
The records also show that he opened fire while on duty on at least two occasions in addition to Bright's shooting – all within about two years.
A 21-page decision issued Thursday night by the board revealed strong divisions among its members over the case.
By releasing Ternand from any wrongdoing, five of the council members found that the officer was right to shoot Bright at about thirty meters.
During his testimony at the beginning of the year at his disciplinary hearing, Ternand stated that he opened fire on seeing Bright turn his head to the right – in the direction of the officer – and reach out to his left. as if he was going to shoot.
However, in a written dissent, the three council members who voted for Ternand 's dismissal asked how Bright could have turned his head just before being shot, as his autopsy revealed that the bullet was about to be shot. had reached "in the center of the head. "
Quoting the testimony of an expert on the use of force by the police, the three dissidents also asked why Bright would try to join his left side since the authorities found nothing in this pocket.
This decision means that Ternand will not be fired or subjected to any discipline for shooting. He will be allowed to return to active service and receive remuneration for the close year in which he was suspended without pay. The city's payroll records show that he is paid about $ 87,000 a year.
By phone Thursday night, Ternand refused to talk to a Tribune reporter.
Bright's mother, Panzy Edwards, said she was unaware of the commission's decision to eliminate the offending officer on the death of his son.
"Can not I do anything about it?" She asked.
The decision by IPRA last year to find Ternand at fault was a rare reprimand for an agency highly criticized for having shown great restraint for its agents and having spent a lot of time to complete its investigations – almost five years in the Ternand case.
The landscape seemed to be changing, however, after the court ordered the release in late 2015 of a video showing agent Jason Van Dyke filming teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times, sparking protests, political unrest, promises of systemic change and Van Dyke's conviction last week. second degree murder and 16 aggravated battery heads.
When IPRA made its decision on Ternand in August 2017, it was the fifth time in two years that officers had been unjustified during a shootout. On the other hand, in the previous eight years, the agency – now replaced by the Police Liability Office – investigated hundreds of shots but found only two unsubstantiated ones.
Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson, however, did not share the view that Ternand should be fired, saying his actions were justified, according to the records.
Steve Flores, a member of the randomly selected police commission to review the file, dismissed Johnson's recommendation and ordered a hearing to determine whether Ternand should be disciplined. According to the rules of the police commission, Flores, a partner of law firm Winston & Strawn, had to recuse himself from the final vote since he had previously reviewed the case.
READ MORE: Chicago Police Board toppled high-level cop role to review shooting officer's killing "
Ternand and his partner, Agent Victor Razo, responded to the robbery call in the Park Manor neighborhood of South Side in the afternoon of November 8, 2012. After concluding that & # 039; 39, it was a false call, the agents saw a young man, later identified as Bright, enter an alley with a rifle in his hand, according to the archives.
When Bright started running, Ternand stepped out of the police vehicle and chased the teenager away, while Razo remained in the vehicle during the chase. Bright has climbed a series of fences in the courtyard of the blockhouses at Block 6700 South Indiana Avenue.
Ternand, who is white, fired a single shot at about thirty meters, hitting the black teenager at the back of his head.
The five members of the jury who eliminated Ternand clashed with three others on a host of issues, including whether or not Ternand had seen Bright grab his left side, signaling to the agent that the teenager was Was getting ready to take out his gun. The members of the jury who thought the shooting was unjustified wondered if Bright had already owned the revolver found by the police.
The majority found Ternand's evidence convincing and cited a case law that would allow police officers to reasonably use lethal force if they were forced to make split-second decisions "under tense, uncertain and rapidly changing circumstances" .
Patrick McGhee, a Cicero police commander who testified for Ternand as an expert in the use of force, said that Ternand had no choice but to sue a suspect with a gun and that he was "instinctive" for the policeman to shoot Bright when he's on his side.
"It is also undisputed that this shooting was a terrible tragedy, especially since Mr. Bright was 15 years old and that (Ternand) expressed his sincere sympathy for Mr. Bright's death," said the spokesman. Five of the five – Eva-Dina Delgado, Community Relations Manager at Peoples Gas; John O'Malley Jr., former Deputy Chief of the United States, Marshal; John Simpson, partner in an investment bank; Rhoda Sweeney, retired judge of Cook County; and Andrea Zopp, President and CEO of World Business Chicago.
But the three dissident council members – President Ghian Foreman, a real estate developer; Reverend Michael Eaddy, pastor of a West Side church; and Paula Wolff, director of a criminal justice project – testified that they were convinced by the expert witness of the Superintendent, who concluded that Ternand's testimony was inconsistent with the evidence.
The use of force expert, Michael Gennaco, examined more than 200 cases of police misconduct and found that the use of lethal force was justified in only about 1½% of them. dissent.
Gennaco questioned Ternand's justification for firing – that Bright had turned his head right just before opening fire. The autopsy, concluding that Bright had been hit by a bullet in the middle of the head, indicated that he was turning away from Ternand when he was shot, he concluded.
Gennaco also discovered that the fact that Ternand confessed to putting his gun in his holster while climbing a fence during the lawsuit raised doubts as to whether the officer really feared for his life.
He also asked why, if Ternand and his partner saw Bright holding a rifle, they had never mentioned in their radio calls to a police dispatcher that the teenager was armed.
But the majority of the jury felt that Bright could have reached his camp without knowing that he had dropped his gun at the start of the chase.
The five board members also tore Gennaco off as unqualified to conclude that Bright – because of his head injury – was facing Ternand when he opened fire.
"(Gennaco) is not a forensic pathologist, and he's not an expert in reading and interpreting autopsy reports or in firearms and bullet trajectories" , said the majority opinion. "He is a lawyer."
Twitter @JeremyGorner
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