Politics
Fire Cop Who Grabbed, Pushed Student While Working as a School Security Guard: Police Superintendent
(WTTW News)
The Chicago police officer who grabbed and pushed a student while working as a security guard at Westinghouse College Prep in 2021 should be fired, Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling determined, records show.
Officer Chavez Siler Sr. violated nine departmental rules on Nov. 16, 2021, when he grabbed and pushed Sharod Grafton, a student who was then 17, during dismissal, according to records from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The teen, who was not injured, sued the city and the Chicago Public Schools. CPS paid $85,000 to resolve the lawsuit after Grafton’s claims against the city were dismissed, according to a CPS spokesperson. Siler had worked as a CPS school resource officer for 10 years, records show.
Siler did not respond to a request for comment from WTTW News. He remains employed as a security guard at the University of Illinois Hospital and Health Sciences System where he has worked since 2022, a University of Illinois at Chicago spokesperson said.
CPS eliminated the use of school resource officers in 2024 after the police murder of George Floyd in May 2020 and incidents like the one at Westinghouse more than a year later triggered widespread opposition to the presence of armed law enforcement officers in schools.
During the altercation, Siler’s gun — which he was carrying in a holster strapped to his leg — fell onto the floor, according to the probe conducted by the agency better known as COPA.
Not only does CPD policy prohibit guns from being carried in that kind of holster, Siler should not have been carrying a gun at all, COPA concluded. Siler was stripped of his police powers four months before the incident at Westinghouse after being accused of using his service weapon to strike a man he was attempting to detain, according to the probe conducted by the agency better known as COPA.
COPA recommended in September that Siler be suspended for at least 365 days or terminated for his actions at Westinghouse, which investigators concluded “demonstrated a lack of professionalism and poor judgment, particularly in a school setting and in front of students and staff.”
Snelling determined Siler should be fired in December, sending the matter to the Chicago Police Board, records show. No decision on whether Siler will be fired has been reached.
The incident began when Siler directed Grafton to exit the school building through an authorized exit and the teen refused, records show.
Grafton told COPA investigators that Siler pointed his gun at him during the altercation. However, the probe concluded that “video evidence suggests that the pointing was likely incidental to Officer Siler’s action of picking up the gun.”
CPD detectives investigated whether Siler committed a crime during the altercation, but no charges were brought. During that probe, a sergeant concluded that there was video evidence that Siler picked up the gun and pointed at the teen in “two separate, distinct actions.”
Citing that evidence, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg urged interim COPA Administrator LaKenya White to reopen the investigation into whether Siler pointed his gun at Grafton.
White declined, telling Witzburg that COPA had “already recommended significant discipline” for Siler and reopening the probe would risk the “viability of COPA’s sustained findings and penalty recommendation” because it occurred in 2021.
Siler, 54, earns $119,154 annually, according to a city database. He has been stripped of his police powers for more than four and half years and is assigned to CPD’s alternate response section, records show.
Siler, who joined CPD in 2007, has now faced termination from CPD twice after being found responsible for using excessive force against a member of the public.
COPA urged police brass to fire Siler in March 2021 after an investigation found that he used his service weapon to strike a man twice in the head while he and two other officers attempted to detain a man in a West Side corner store just before 2 a.m. on March 15, 2017.
Although the man officers were attempting to detain had a gun, another officer had the gun by the time Siler pointed his gun at the man, struck him with the gun and urged another officer to deploy his Taser against the man and hit him in the face, according to COPA’s probe.
Even though then-Supt. David Brown agreed that Siler should be terminated, the Chicago Police Board voted unanimously to reject that recommendation. Instead, the board voted unanimously in April 2023 to suspend Siler for six months.
Snelling’s recommendation that Siler be fired was first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times, which also published video of the altercation in November 2021.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
