Seventeen minutes late to his job patrolling the
CTA's Red Line station at 95th Street, Officer Alvin Weems acted fast
when he saw three men beating two others as he walked in to work. Weems
-- wearing a tan stocking cap on his head and dark jacket over his
uniform -- dropped his work bag, shouted he was a police officer and
pulled his off-duty revolver out of his holster, police said. But
Weems, police Supt. Philip Cline announced Friday, made a fatal mistake
the morning of March 8, 2003. He kept a finger on the trigger of his
gun, which accidentally discharged, killing 23-year-old Michael
Pleasance, whose family is now suing the city. The series of events,
captured in chilling detail on a CTA surveillance tape, happened in
about a minute, Cline said. He plans to suspend Weems, 44, for 30 days
without pay and force him to undergo use-of-force training when he
comes back. "We instruct officers to keep their fingers off the trigger
unless they plan to fire the weapon," Cline said. "This did not
happen." Weems, an 18-year department veteran, can challenge the
discipline, recommended by the department's Office of Professional
Standards and formalized by Cline about a month ago. An investigation
by the Cook County state's attorney's office confirmed the shooting did
not merit criminal charges. Cline's news conference came hours after
Cook County Judge Jeffrey Lawrence ruled that the tape of the shooting
can be made public.
- See TV station Video [here
]