2 Chicago Cops Have Resigned Over Decade-Old Police Brutality Case

By Rachel Cromidas in News on Dec 9, 2016 6:09PM

Two Chicago cops have resigned over a police brutality case that took place a decade ago.

Brian Murphy and Jason Orsa, who have been with the department for 12 years, according to the Tribune, stepped down as of Dec. 1. They were allowed to remain on the police force for years even after being accused of beating a Northwest Side Taco Burrito King restaurant patron while out drinking and off-duty on March 24, 2006.

Surveillance footage of the incident shows Murphy (wearing white) jump out of his seat and point his pistol at a man named Obed DeLeon (wearing blue), who had walked inside the restaurant to complain about a car blocking the restaurant parking lot, near the intersection of Harlem and Higgins. The assault can be seen in the video above at about 1:13 minutes in. The officers later claimed he provoked them by yelling gang slogans—but witnesses didn't corroborate those claims. Murphy then allegedly began beating DeLeon.

Orsa, a friend, and another officer, Daniel McNamara, also allegedly got involved in beating, kicking and holding down DeLeon. The police department later could not determined whether McNamara had an active role in beating DeLeon, but he was suspended for 18 months for not telling his supervisors what had happened.

It took five years for the police board moved to fire Murphy and Orsa, but after a county judge reversed the board's decision, the two men remained on the police force for another five years. Finally, this past August, an Illinois appeals court panel of judges upheld the original police board decision to dismiss them, reasoning that the mere fact that Murphy pulled out a gun "unprovoked" in the restaurant was damning enough.

“Our careful and close review of the video leaves us dumbfounded by the circuit court’s rejection of the [b]oard’s prima facie true and correct findings,” Justice Michael B. Hyman wrote in the August ruling, according to Chicago Law Bulletin. “Misconduct and manipulation of the sort that occurred here leaves a stain on the good honor of the vast majority of police officers in the department who comport themselves with integrity, dignity, decency and discipline."

Murphy and Orsa appealed the decision again, but the state Supreme Court denied it on Nov. 23, the Tribune reports.

The Tribune story on the police beating sheds some troubling light on why it took so long to get these officers out of uniform:

A few days after the beating, DeLeon lodged a complaint against the police. But it wasn't until a year later that the officers were questioned by investigators for the Independent Police Review Authority, Chicago's much-maligned agency that investigates the most serious allegations of police misconduct. In those interviews, the officers alleged for the first time that DeLeon had threatened police and yelled gang slogans in the restaurant.

Eighteen more months passed before IPRA tried to interview the sergeant who approved the criminal charges against DeLeon and two eyewitnesses, but he had retired by then, records show. Records also show the IPRA investigation limped along for years. One investigator asked supervisors for extensions on deadlines at least 23 times, according to the records.

Finally, in 2010, four years after the incident, then-police Superintendent Jody Weis brought formal administrative charges against the officers, seeking their dismissal, before the police board.