Chicago’s top cop has moved to fire a group of tactical officers suspected of stealing drugs and money and lying about the source of guns they took off the street without making arrests.
Officers Daniel Fair, Jeffery Morrow, Kevin Taylor and Rupert Collins are accused of engaging in misconduct the Civilian Office of Police Accountability deemed “substantial and irrefutable.”
In one case, Fair and Taylor took cash and marijuana during a vehicle search, COPA said in a report dated Jan. 26. GPS records show they drove to Fair’s block after the search and the contraband was never inventoried.
Fair and Morrow also recovered a gun used in a slaying in Kentucky and let the suspect go, COPA said. Had the officers searched his name in a law enforcement database, they would’ve discovered he had an active warrant for murder.
All four officers were interviewed by the FBI last year. COPA said Fair and Morrow admitted to “seizing firearms and completing false reports,” while Taylor conceded that he was aware of his colleagues submitting bogus paperwork. Collins, however, claimed he was unaware of officers covering up problematic gun seizures, COPA said.
Cook County prosecutors and the FBI both declined to prosecute, COPA said. Fair faces felony charges of official misconduct and obstruction of justice in Cook County criminal court for allegedly lying about the circ*mstances of another gun case.
COPA concluded the officers engaged in a troubling pattern of misconduct and called for their dismissal. On May 10, Police Supt. Larry Snelling told COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten he was setting in motion the process for firing them.
The officers’ attorney, Tim Grace, said they “were under an intense amount of pressure to get guns off the streets” and “were trying to do the right thing.”
“They committed no crimes and look forward to presenting their disciplinary case,” Grace added.
‘This never happened’
COPA’s probe started with the recovery of a little purple handgun tucked inside a woman’s bag as she stood at a bus stop on the night of Oct. 5, 2021.
As she waited at 120th Street and Michigan Avenue, Fair and Morrow pulled up and searched her fanny pack, pulling out the colorful .380 handgun. They cut her loose but kept the gun.
“We understand why you have this weapon,” the woman recalled an officer saying.
“We’ll let you go,” the officer allegedly told the woman, a legal gun owner who didn’t have a license to carry the handgun in public. “This never happened.”
The woman filed a complaint at the Calumet police station where the officers were assigned to a tactical team, spurring COPA’s investigation.
Fair and Morrow claimed in a report that they recovered the pistol a mile away while responding to a ShotSpotter alert more than 10 minutes before the stop. Using GPS data from their police vehicle, COPA concluded “it would be physically impossible” for their story to be true.
Investigators said they also found evidence that shows Fair and Taylor stole drugs and money during another stop on June 15, 2021,when they encountered a couple in a parked car in the 500 block of West 127th Place. Taylor said they were being stopped because the license plate didn’t register in a database, but there was no evidence that it had even been searched.
During a search of the car, Taylor’s body camera captured Fair smiling as he held a stack of bills, according to COPA. At one point, Fair appears to take a large bag of suspected marijuana to their unmarked vehicle.
The money and weed were never inventoried, COPA said. GPS records show the police vehicle drove directly to Fair’s block on the Far South Side.
FBI gets involved
Less than a week later, on June 20, 2021, Fair and Morrow came upon a Kentucky murder suspect outside a home in the 200 block of West 19th Street. “Give me a gun right now, you know what I’m saying, and go about your day,” Fair is heard saying on a body camera recording.
A man walked toward the officers and was detained by Morrow, COPA said. Fair took a gun from him, and he was set free without having his name run in a law enforcement database.
The officers wrote in a report that someone waved them down and said he found a gun in his yard and wanted to turn it over, COPA said.
In January 2023, FBI officials told COPA the gun had been used in a murder in Kentucky on June 10, 2021 — just 10 days before the suspect’s encounter with the officers. By that time, the man was being held in jail in Kentucky on a murder charge.
COPA raised further alarms about two gun seizures in July 2021, one of which was flagged by the FBI. In both cases, officers stopped recording video after using a code for “found property,” then lied about where the guns came from.
“You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?” Fair says on video after finding a gun in a trunk on July 16, 2021.
“Yeah,” Collins responds before turning off his camera.
Taylor then says “F/P,” short for found property, and deactivates his camera.
Fair submitted a report saying that someone flagged them down after finding a gun in the 10400 block of South Maryland Avenue. Records showed their vehicle drove by that area but never stopped.
A series of lawsuits
Some of the Calumet District officers have also been named in lawsuits that have cost the city nearly $200,000. Other lawsuits are ongoing.
In 2022, the city paid $93,000 to settle a lawsuit in federal court accusing Collins and other officers of misconduct in connection with a 2019 arrest of Daniel Pena on a battery charge that was later dropped.
Pena said Officer Wilfredo Ortiz kicked him in the face and struck him with a baton, injuring his shoulder, inside the Lincoln District police station on the North Side. Collins was accused of writing a false report to cover up the incident.
In January, the city agreed to pay $100,000 to settle another lawsuit that named Fair, Morrow and other officers in connection with a 2021 arrest.
According to that lawsuit, officers removed Antonio Duncan from his Far South Side home while he was wearing a towel, which fell off, and his hip was injured when he was knocked to the ground, naked, the lawsuit said.
Fair and Morrow were on the scene but weren’t key players in the alleged misconduct.
Duncan pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and trespassing after he was accused of threatening to kill a neighbor woman during a quarrel, Cook County court records show.
Push to disband tactical units
Last month, Supt. Snelling agreed with COPA’s findings and decided he would “seek separation” against the four officers.
The move comes as Snelling faces calls to disband the department’s tactical teams in the wake of the police killing of Dexter Reed.
Five tactical officers from the Harrison District stopped Reed on a residential street for a purported seat belt violation. After resisting orders, Reed shot one of the officers and set off a gunfight in which the other cops fired 96 rounds in 41 seconds, according to COPA’s ongoing investigation.
“We demand the tactical units be banned and Mayor [Brandon] Johnson, Supt. Snelling and COPA fire the officers,” Miracle Boyd, with the activist group Good Kids Mad City, said at a community meeting.
