Lawsuit Accuses Chicago Police Officer of Attacking Non-Threatening Latino Couple

From [HERE] A Chicago Police officer is being sued for alleged brutality and is under investigation by the Independent Police Review Authority, two years after an incident on the Northwest Side. It has taken two years for Luis Cordero Jr. and his girlfriend, Heather Rzany, to put a name with the face of the off-duty officer whom they claim terrorized them. The incident happened in 2010 outside the Pavilion Apartments, in the 5400 block of North East River Road, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The officer allegedly stormed out of a car with a beer bottle in his hand and pistol-whipped Cordero repeatedly, and then stuck a gun in Rzany’s mouth and ordered her to “shut the f**k up, bitch, or I’ll blow your brains out,” the Sun-Times reported.

Cordero and Rzany said they were asked to leave the apartment complex by a private security guard who was responding to a noise complaint, and were leaving as asked, the Sun-Times reported. But the off-duty officer, now identified by attorneys for the couple as Englewood District Officer Chris Gofron, stumbled out of the security guard’s car, tossed the beer bottle, and flashed a Chicago Police badge in one hand as he assaulted them, the Sun-Times reported.

The guard said he was giving the officer a ride and did not know him, the Sun-Times reported.

The Sun-Times says the guard persuaded the off-duty officer to get back into his car, at which point the officer said of the beating, “That’s how we do it in Englewood.”

A lawsuit filed by the couple said the officers who responded just talked to Gofron and left the scene, the Sun-Times reported.

The Sun-Times says Gofron was previously sued for allegedly using excessive force on two Englewood juveniles whose theft charges were later dropped. The city settled with the youths’ families, the newspaper reported.