A Chicago police officer who shoved a woman into her kitchen cabinets and a microwave after she called 911 to report her boyfriend was beating her will not lose his job, despite a city watchdog agency’s recommendation that he be fired. Officer Brian Purtell instead faces a 180-day suspension for his conduct during the September 5, 2020 domestic violence call, while his partner faces a lesser penalty.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability had urged former Chicago police superintendent Larry Snelling to fire Purtell, according to WTTW News. Snelling agreed that Purtell’s use of force violated CPD policy but determined it was reasonable and necessary, just not proportional, and settled on a significant suspension and additional training as the proper penalty instead of termination, per the same report. COPA leaders ultimately accepted that determination. Purtell’s partner, Robert Strycker, faces a 15-day suspension, a lighter penalty than the 30-day suspension COPA had recommended for him, according to a final summary report from COPA.
Body Camera Footage Showed the Shove
The incident began when the woman telephoned 911 and reported that her boyfriend kept hitting her, according to COPA’s report. Body-worn camera footage captured Purtell turning back to shove the woman rather than de-escalating the situation or simply moving away from her, per WTTW’s reporting on the case. COPA found that Purtell shoved her hard enough that she hit her head on the corner of an upper kitchen cabinet and was forced into a microwave sitting on the counter, breaking the appliance, the agency’s report states.
The woman told investigators she briefly lost consciousness and later had a headache, the station reported. She showed officers bruises, ripped shorts and a damaged door as evidence that she had been beaten and suffocated, according to the same report. Her boyfriend, who weighed more than 100 pounds more than she did, told the officers that she had hit him. He was not arrested. The woman was taken to a nearby hospital, then released and arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery; those charges were dismissed three months later, on December 8, 2020, according to COPA’s findings.
Six Minutes, Then a Dismissive Response
COPA’s report describes the entirety of the officers’ investigation — including their initial response, preliminary investigation and conclusion — as lasting just over six minutes. The agency concluded that Purtell and Strycker failed to follow CPD policy and state law requiring them to determine the predominant aggressor and arrest that person, instead taking self-serving statements at face value. “They re-victimized her by almost instantly taking self-serving statements as true,” the report states…