Family of man killed by Chicago cop: 'This officer should not have been on the street'
CHICAGO - The family of a man shot and killed by Chicago police on the city's South Side says the officer who pulled the trigger should have been fired several years ago.
The bodycam video released this week by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) — Chicago's police oversight agency — shows a CPD officer shoot Michael Craig within seconds of entering his Gresham apartment last month.
Now, Craig's son says that officer had no business wearing a badge.
"He shouldn't have been on the police force, he shouldn't have been there," said Patrick Jenkins.
Oppenheimer also said police targeted the wrong person when they responded to the apartment in Gresham. He says instead of shooting Craig, they should have been helping him.
"He called 911 to report that his wife who is mentally ill was holding a knife to his throat. His 7-year-old child told Chicago police who arrived on the scene to help him because 'my mommy has a knife to my daddy'," said Oppenheimer.
"My dad didn't deserve what happened, no human being deserves what happened," added Jenkins.
Former Police Supt. Eddie Johnson had moved to fire the officer, but he was reinstated by unanimous vote of the Police Board, which noted the officer had immediately entered treatment for alcohol abuse and had been cleared for duty by a psychologist.
But at a news conference outside City Hall Friday, lawyers for the family of Michael Craig questioned whether the officer was fit for duty based on records from his 2016 disciplinary hearing and the officer’s "erratic" behavior in the Oct. 4 shooting that killed Craig.
"This officer should not have been on the street and the police department, the police superintendent decided that but he was overruled by politics and the police board," said Attorney Michael Oppenheimer at a news conference Friday.
Michael Craig | Provided (SUN-TIMES MEDIA WIRE)
According to Police Board records, the officer was arrested in the early-morning hours of March 26, 2016, after officers were summoned to an address in the 11300 block of South Avenue J in the East Side neighborhood near the Indiana border. Neighbors had reported a "domestic incident" and officers found the heavily intoxicated officer arguing with a similarly intoxicated woman on the sidewalk.
The officer showed the officers his CPD badge but was unable to answer questions about who the woman was or what had happened, a Police Board order states. When asked what he and the woman were arguing about, the officer "grew agitated" and asked them to call a sergeant. He also was unable to answer questions posed by the sergeant, and while left unattended in the sergeant’s vehicle, he tried to use the in-car computer terminal.
Told not to touch the computer by one of the responding officers, the officer shouted "You’re supposed to be my brother!" then said words to the effect of "Do you want me to get out of the car and kick your a--?" according to a 2016 police report.
The officer was cuffed and when he was searched, officers found a "line-up sheet" that belonged to the sergeant tucked into the officer’s wallet.
Court records indicate the charge, a single count of simple assault, was dropped. Court records indicate the officer also had been charged with disorderly conduct in 1999 and also was arrested in 2010 by police in Evanston for disorderly conduct. Court records show the officer received four months probation in the 2010 case. It is not clear if the officer faced any discipline from CPD in connection with the case.
At Police Board hearings in 2019, the officer said had completed both in-patient and out-patient treatment for alcohol abuse immediately after his arrest in 2016, and said he hadn’t realized he had a drinking problem until he woke up in jail after his arrest.
The officer testified "he had been under enormous amounts of stress related to his job as a police officer and that he did not drink prior to joining the Police Department. He testified that he was affected by the poverty, despair, and violence that he encountered on a daily basis."
At the 2019 hearing, the officer said he had been sober since the incident. A psychologist deemed him fit for duty. While the Police Board found the officer guilty on all charges leveled by the superintendent, the nine-member panel unanimously ruled that he should be reinstated.
Chicago police say the officer involved has been on desk duty since October 5, but Craig's family wants him fired.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.