IPRA Recommends Chicago Police Fire Officer Involved In Rekia Boyd Shooting
(CBS) -- The Independent Police Review Authority is recommending that the police officer involved in the 2012 fatal shooting of Rekia Boyd be fired, according to a statement from a Chicago Police News Affairs spokesman.
IPRA investigates all police-involved shootings and is an external body from the Chicago Police Department. Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy has 90 days to decide if officer Dante Servin should be disciplined.
"We take the use of force by our officers, and the recommendations of IPRA, extremely seriously and we will carefully review the matter," said CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
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Servin was charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct, and reckless discharge of a firearm in the shooting , but was acquitted last April before the defense presented its case. The judge said he had no choice but to acquit Servin of involuntary manslaughter, because his actions were deliberate, not reckless, and suggested prosecutors should have charged Servin with murder.
The 22-year-old Boyd and a group of people were hanging out in Douglas Park in March 2012 when Servin, angry about noise they were making, got into a shouting match with a man in the group. Prosecutors have said Servin, who was off-duty at the time, fired five shots over his shoulder from inside his car, striking Boyd in the head, and grazing another person in the group.
Servin has said he opened fire because he thought he saw someone coming at him with a gun, although investigators found only a cellphone at the scene.
Rekia Boyd's family was vocal in its condemnation of that acquittal. Today - her mother Angela Helton welcomed the recommendation to fire Servin.
"I am ecstatic and I'm glad he's getting fired. And I hope that he's not going to have workman's comp or a pension or whatever comes next. I want that taken away from him also. And I plan on taking him to court."
The IPRA released a statement saying it, "...thoroughly investigates every officer-involved shooting, as we did in this case involving off-duty CPD Detective Dante Servin. Yesterday, with the investigation completed, IPRA sustained several allegations against Detective Servin, which included the violation of CPD's Deadly Force policy by discharging a firearm into a crowd, striking Rekia Boyd, an innocent bystander; failing to qualify with the weapon he discharged on the night of the incident in violation of CPD policy; and inattention to duty for making inconsistent statements in his various accounts of the incident to detectives, the State's Attorney's Office and IPRA."
