Crime & Law

Man Pulled Over by the Same CPD Officers Who Stopped, Shot Dexter Reed Sues the City

A Chicago native who was stopped by the same tactical team of officers who would days later pull over Dexter Reed and kill him in a barrage of gunfire after he fired at officers has sued the city, claiming the traffic stop violated his constitutional rights.

Shunza Walker, a tattoo artist who was born and raised on the West Side but now lives in far west suburban Will County, was driving his black Maserati less than a mile away from the intersection on the border between Humboldt Park and Garfield Park where Reed would die when Chicago police officers stopped him, records show.

Walker told WTTW News the traffic stop left him scared to drive anywhere in Chicago and shocked, a feeling that intensified after Reed’s killing made headlines across the city, igniting a firestorm over CPD’s use of traffic stops.

“It could have been me in the exact same way,” Walker told WTTW News.

A spokesperson for the city’s Law Department declined to comment on the lawsuit.

The two stops are strikingly similar, as described in the final summary report of the probe by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability into Walker’s March 6, 2024, stop and the preliminary report into the incident that would result in Reed’s death on March 21, 2024.

The agency better known as COPA concluded that the six officers who stopped Walker violated his constitutional rights in addition to between three and nine department rules. Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling concurred with COPA’s conclusions and found those violations merited suspensions ranging from three days to 25 days for each officer that participated in the stop.

A lawyer for the officers told WTTW News in May all were appealing that discipline.

Walker’s name was redacted from COPA’s report but became a part of the public record after he sued the city on Aug. 27.

Both Reed and Walker were stopped on suspicion for failing to wear a seat belt, records show.

But when an officer approached Walker’s Maserati, he told Walker he had been driving too fast while eating. A second officer told Walker he had been stopped because his windows were tinted too dark. The windows of Reed’s SUV were also tinted, records show.

“COPA questions whether the officers would have been able to clearly observe the positioning of (Walker’s) seatbelt given the tints on the windows of Maserati,” according to the final summary report of the March 6, 2024, incident.

COPA officials raised identical concerns about the validity of the stop that led to Reed’s death.

Walker gave officers his license, but officers did not use the computer in their vehicle to check whether there were any outstanding warrants for his arrest, records show. Initially, Walker refused an order from a third officer to get out of his car and asked the officers to request their supervisor come to the scene, records show.

Two officers told Walker that if they called a supervisor, he’d go to jail for obstruction, records show. After that, he got out of his car, and a fourth officer lifted up Walker’s sweatshirt to search for a weapon. Walker was not armed, records show.

Four officers searched the Maserati, looking in and around both seats in the front of the car and the back seats, records show.

During the search, Walker demanded the officers’ badge numbers. Officers again threatened him with arrest, and one used profanity in her response, records show.

Investigators concluded that the officers did not have a reasonable basis to stop Walker’s Maserati, and “impermissibly extended the duration of (Walker’s) stop in violation of the Fourth Amendment,” COPA concluded.

The officers should not have searched Walker because they “lacked any reasonable belief that (Walker) was armed and dangerous” and the search of the Maserati “exceeded the legal parameters of a protective sweep of a vehicle,” COPA concluded.

In addition, two officers violated CPD’s rules that prohibit members of CPD from retaliating against members of the public for requesting police services. Walker should not have been threatened with arrest for requesting a supervisor come to the scene of the traffic stop, COPA concluded.

Officers failed to properly document their traffic stop of Walker, records show.

“These combined circumstances, especially if such behavior is repeated numerous times over the course of other interactions with members of the public, have the potential to frustrate judicially mandated police oversight and reform and to undermine trust between CPD and members of the public,” COPA concluded in its final summary of its probe into the officers’ decision to stop Walker.

Walker, 41, said he has been pulled over so many times by Chicago police officers that he has lost count. After the stop, Walker said he immediately filed a complaint with COPA, the agency charged with investigating police misconduct.

“I knew my rights had been violated,” said Walker, adding that he was pulled over more often after buying the Maserati.

One of the five officers who stopped Reed, Alexandria “Ally” Giampapa, resigned from CPD in November and is now a police officer in Tipp City, Ohio.

Officer Gregory Saint Louis, who was shot in the hand by Reed during the March 21, 2024, traffic stop, is inactive, according to a department spokesperson.

The three other officers who stopped Walker and then Reed — Victor Pacheco, Aubrey Webb and Thomas Spanos — remain members of CPD but are assigned to administrative duties, according to a department spokesperson. Pacheco and Webb earn $108,000 annually, while Spanos earns $98,000, city records show.

Snelling declined to relieve them of their police powers, as the former head of COPA urged nearly 18 months ago.

Jordan Marsh, Walker’s attorney, who has filed several lawsuits against the city alleging officers violated drivers’ constitutional rights during traffic stops, said Walker was stopped for “no reason” as part of an “invasive” campaign by officers that has left a wide swath of trauma across the country.

That COPA and Snelling agree the officers violated department ruled by stopping Walker will bolster his lawsuit, and the results of the probe and discipline have already been included in the official record.

Reed’s family has also sued the city, alleging his civil rights were violated by the officers who stopped and fatally shot him.

The Chicago City Council’s Finance Committee voted 12-15 on April 11 to reject a recommendation from the city’s lawyers to pay Reed’s family to resolve that lawsuit. The City Council has yet to take a final vote on the proposed settlement.

In October 2024, WTTW News reported that COPA identified a troubling pattern of undocumented and aggressive traffic stops on the city’s West Side at least a year before Reed’s death. But COPA did not alert the commander of the Harrison Police District until six days after Reed’s death that the agency had received numerous complaints related to CPD members “detaining, searching, and/or subjecting citizens to force. COPA’s investigation of these complaints has been impeded by a consistent lack of documentation, Body Worn Camera (BWC) footage, and accurate recordkeeping.”

That could help Reed’s family prove that the city and CPD should be held liable for his death, and help Walker prove his rights were violated after CPD brass had been told that officers were improperly stopping drivers and pedestrians on the West Side.

Andrea Kersten resigned as head of COPA on Feb. 13 after leaders of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability informed her the commission planned to recommend her termination for a number of failures they said had compromised Chicago’s police accountability system, eroding public confidence in policing and police oversight.

COPA should have acted sooner to raise the alarm about the pattern of improper traffic stops on the West Side, Anthony Driver Jr. and Remel Terry told Kersten.

“This failure may have put Chicago residents at greater risk of harm and resulted in a missed opportunity to address a frequent source of complaints,” Driver and Terry wrote to Kersten. “This demonstrates a failure of leadership, compromises public safety, and undermines COPA’s mission to address patterns of police misconduct, and make policy recommendations to improve CPD and reduce incidents of police misconduct.”

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

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