Politics
Top Cop Agrees That 3 CPD Officers Who Stopped, Shot Dexter Reed Should Be Suspended for Violating Rights of 3rd Driver
An image captured by a Chicago Police Department officer’s body-worn camera shows Officer Aubrey Webb engaged in a verbal altercation with a man he and four other officers searched on Sept. 21, 2023. (Civilian Office of Police Accountability)
Three of the five Chicago police officers who pulled over Dexter Reed and killed him in a barrage of gunfire after he fired at officers in March 2024 violated the constitutional rights of another driver on Chicago’s West Side six months before the fatal shooting and should be suspended, the agency tasked with investigating police misconduct and Supt. Larry Snelling agreed, records show.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability has not yet released the results of its probe into the March 21, 2024, traffic stop of Reed or the shooting that killed him, records show. Four officers fired 96 shots in 41 seconds at Reed, hitting him 13 times, shortly after Reed shot and wounded a fifth officer, according to a preliminary investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
The agency better known as COPA found nearly a year ago that the tactical team that stopped Reed improperly stopped and searched Chicagoans during two separate traffic stops on March 1, 2024, and March 6, 2024, records show.
COPA and the city’s top cop have now determined that officers assigned to tactical team in the Harrison (11th) Police District on the West Side, one of the most violent in the city, violated dozens of department rules during three traffic stops.
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling determined that Officer Aubrey Webb should be suspended for 15 days for using unprofessional language and engaging in a verbal altercation with the man he and four other officers stopped and searched on Sept. 21, 2023, about 2.5 miles from where Reed was stopped.
All five officers who conducted the traffic stop failed to notify the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications and failed to document the incident as required by Chicago Police Department policy, according to COPA’s probe.
Officer Victor Pacheco should be suspended for three days, Snelling determined.
Alexandria “Ally” Giampapa resigned from CPD in November 2024 and is now a police officer in Tipp City, Ohio. Giampapa would have received a five-day suspension from Snelling had she not left CPD for her actions during the September 2023 stop, records show.
COPA opened an investigation into the Sept. 21, 2023, traffic stop on May 21, 2024, approximately two months after officers shot and killed Reed after a complaint was filed by the man who officers stopped.
Tim Grace, a lawyer for the Fraternal Order of Police who represents Webb and Pacheco, said the officers would appeal their suspensions, and said COPA was “an institution with a bias that is baked in.”
“COPA once again inserts itself into policing with neither the knowledge or understanding of how or what a law enforcement officer does on a day to day basis,” Grace said in a statement to WTTW News. “It’s an agency that always reacts and is constantly posing solutions that are in search of problems.”
The other two officers who participated in Reed’s traffic stop as well as the other two stops that violated CPD policy — Officers Gregory Saint Louis and Thomas Spanos — were not present during the Sept. 21, 2023, stop in Homan Square, records show.
Saint Louis, who was shot in the hand by Reed during the March 21, 2024, traffic stop, is on disability and is not an active member of CPD, records show.
While Webb, Pacheco and Spanos were assigned to administrative duties as recently as November 2025, all three officers have returned to active duty in the 11th District, a CPD spokesperson said Friday.
Webb and Pacheco earn $111,252 annually, according to the city’s database. Spanos earns $105,906, records show.
In the September 2023 incident, a man was sitting in front of his home in his girlfriend’s car before 8 p.m. when officers approached, saying that the tint on the car’s windows was too dark and he was not wearing a seat belt, according to COPA’s probe.
The car was not in motion at the time officers approached it, according to COPA’s probe.
When the man, who was not identified in keeping with COPA’s rules, failed to provide his driver’s license as requested, officers asked him to get out of the car, according to COPA’s probe. The man objected to the search of his car.
The man, identified as Black in COPA’s probe, told officers he was parked, not driving, and was not committing any crime when he was detained. He “told officers that this was not a ‘real traffic stop’ and felt targeted,” according to the probe.
Officers then searched the interior of the car and its compartments and discovered what they described to investigators as “open cannabis,” according to the probe. State law requires cannabis to be kept in a “secured, sealed or resealable, and child-resistant container” while in a vehicle.
Officers’ body-worn cameras did not clearly capture any improperly stored cannabis, according to COPA’s probe.
The man was not arrested or cited by the officers, according to the probe.
“As Officer Webb returned to the unmarked CPD vehicle in which he has been traveling, he directed profanities towards (the man) stating, ‘F--- that s---, man. I bet you can’t whoop me though, mother f-----,” according to the probe.
That language “did not promote trust between CPD and members of the public,” COPA concluded. “The derogatory language was not professional, nor was it courteous. The use of that language constitutes misconduct.”
In May 2025, Snelling recommended that Webb serve a 25-day suspension for violating five rules during a March 1, 2024, traffic stop, records show. Webb improperly detained and searched the driver, failed to properly document the stop and search and failed to turn on his body-worn camera to record the stop, Snelling concluded.
In addition, Snelling determined that Webb should serve an additional 25-day suspension for violating three rules during a March 6, 2024, traffic stop, records show. Webb improperly detained the driver and failed to properly document the traffic stop and search, Snelling concluded.
In May 2025, Snelling determined Pacheco should serve a five-day suspension for violating six rules during the March 1, 2024, traffic stop, records show. Pacheco improperly detained the driver, failed to identify himself, searched the driver without justification, failed to properly document the stop and search and did not activate his body-worn camera, records show.
In addition, Snelling recommended that Pacheco serve an additional 10-day suspension for violating five rules during the March 6, 2024, traffic stop, records show. Pacheco improperly detained the driver, failed to provide the driver with a receipt documenting the search, threatened the driver with arrest for obstruction after he requested a sergeant and failed to properly document the search, Snelling concluded.
Reed’s family has sued the city, alleging his civil rights were violated by the officers who stopped and fatally shot him. That COPA and Snelling agree the officers violated department rules in other traffic stops could help Reed’s family prove that the city and CPD should be held liable for his death, because officials knew officers were improperly stopping drivers and pedestrians on the West Side before Reed’s death and did nothing to stop it.
Andrew M. Stroth, the lawyer representing Reed’s family, has said the 26-year-old was killed by a “rogue unit” of CPD officers.
The Chicago City Council refused to settle that lawsuit, despite the recommendation of the city’s lawyers. Saint Louis has counter sued Reed’s estate, asking for compensation for his injuries.
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.”
COPA has concluded its probe of eight other complaints filed against officers assigned to the Harrison Police District between June 2023 and March 2024, but has not yet released those results, while seven other complaints remain open and under investigation, according to information obtained by WTTW News as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request. An additional 31 complaints were closed with no findings, records show.
Kersten resigned as head of COPA on Feb. 13, 2025, after Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability President Anthony Driver Jr. and Vice President Remel Terry 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, Driver and 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.”
The Chicago City Council unanimously confirmed Kenya White in March to replace Kersten.
COPA’s new leadership “is at least trying to understand the enormous difficulties faced each and every day by our officers,” Grace said.
The Sept. 21, 2023, traffic stop was not properly documented by the participating officers, according to COPA’s probe and Snelling’s determination.
CPD’s traffic stop policy, last revised seven years ago, requires officers to document every time they stop a driver regardless of the reason by not only notifying dispatchers but also filling out a form that is better known as a “blue card.”
That paper card, filled out by hand, requires officers to document the reason for the stop, the driver’s name, address, gender, year of birth and “the officer’s subjective determination of the race of the driver of the vehicle.”
In addition, officers must record the make and year of the vehicle they stopped as well as the date, the location of the stop and the time that the stop began and ended. Officers must also record whether they asked to search the vehicle, whether a search was conducted and the reason for that search, according to the policy.
The officer is also required to document whether drugs, weapons or other illegal items were recovered during the stop, according to the policy.
When officers search property or individuals, officers must fill out not just a blue card but also a second form, known as an investigatory stop report, to document not only the officers’ “reasonable articulable suspicion that the person is committing, about to commit, or has committed a criminal offense” but also information about the drivers’ race and gender.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
