Chicago Cop Fired for Posing with Black Suspect in Antlers
Tuesday night a judge ordered the release of a photo that got a Chicago police officer fired last year, depicting officers Timothy McDermott and Jerome Finnigan posing with rifles over an unidentified black suspect, who was made to wear antlers:
Per the Chicago Sun-Times, the photo was believed to be taken sometime between 1999 and 2003. Since then, Finnigan was jailed for 12 years for leading a team of rogue cops on a crime spree. The photo was turned over the Chicago Police Department, which began an investigation.
“Appearing to treat an African-American man not as a human being but as a hunted animal is disgraceful and shocks the conscience,” the department’s board wrote after voting 5-4 to fire McDermott.
Superintendent Garry McCarthy said the photo
“is disgusting, and the despicable actions of these two former officers have no place in our police department or in our society. As the superintendent of this department, and as a resident of our city, I will not tolerate this kind of behavior, and that is why neither of these officers works for CPD today. I fired one of the officers and would have fired the other if he hadn’t already been fired by the time I found out about the picture. Our residents deserve better than this, as do the thousands of good men and women in this department.”
McDermott said he remembered no details about the photo, but did remember that the suspect had been arrested for drugs, and that the two officers had let him go.
“I am embarrassed by my participation in this photograph,” McDermott said. “I made a mistake as a young, impressionable police officer who was trying to fit in.”
[h/t Chicago Sun-Times]
[Image via screengrab]
