Cops Involved in 2006 Videotaped Bar Fight Get Badges Back

By Anthonia Akitunde in News on May 2, 2009 10:00PM

After three officers were found not guilty of criminal charges on Tuesday, Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis reinstated the jobs of five officers involved in a taped December 2006 bar fight at Jefferson Tap and Grille in the West Loop on Friday. Weis returned badges to the three officers who were defendants in the trial - Sgt. Jefferey Planey and Officers Paul Powers and Gregory Barnes - as well as two other officers who did not stand trial.

The officers were accused of beating up four men at the bar after a night of drinks and consoling a distraught Powers, whose father had died three months earlier, according to Chicago Breaking News. Three of the accusers - Aaron Gilfand, Adam Mastrucci and Scott Lowrance - were present at the ruling but did not speak to reporters, according to the Tribune. Prosecutors claimed the fight started after an officer ended their game of pool by sweeping the balls into a corner pocket. The defense claimed the fight was caused by one of the accused mocking Powers as he cried over his father’s death three months earlier.

Criminal Court Judge Thomas V. Gainer Jr. sided with the defense and acquitted Planey, Powers and Barnes on Tuesday, believing Planey played the role of peace maker during the fight. The tape showed Planey shoving Gilfand’s brother against a wall by the neck twice, but also separating Powers from Gilfand and moving Gilfand away from the fight. Barnes and Powers were not seen assaulting anyone in the tape and the accuser’s gave conflicting testimony regarding their involvement. Gilfand did not seek medical attention for the injuries he claimed to have sustained from the fight until four days after the incident. Weis used this evidence as reason to reinstate the officers.

Some find the judge’s use of the “fighting words” doctrine in his decision to be questionable. The Supreme Court developed the doctrine in 1942 when it upheld a decision against a man who used derisive, offensive language against an officer in a public place. The Court defined “fighting words” to be any word “which by their very utterance inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace.”

In his 30-page ruling Gainer noted that one of the accusers was said to have called one of the officers a “p----” and another said an officer needed “to have his ass kicked,” though they deny those charges. Gainer also wrote that fighting words have been ruled to have weight in Illinois courts if there is an “implicit or implied threat” which “can lead to mutual combat,” according to the Sun-Times.

The opinion did not fly well with legal experts interviewed by the Sun-Times. “To say that words can provoke you into justifiably beating the hell out of somebody -- that's just not the law," said DePaul University Law Professor Len Cavise in a Sun-Times article. [additional info from Tribune]