Politics
Top Cop Agrees to Fire Chicago Police Officer Who Repeatedly Used Racial Slurs: Records
(WTTW News)
A Chicago police officer who repeatedly used racial slurs while on duty should be fired, the agency tasked with investigating police misconduct and former Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling agreed, records show.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability determined that not only did Officer John Kaporis repeatedly use anti-Black and anti-gay slurs while on duty on April 12, 2022, he used a racial slur to refer to a Black dispatcher after being sent to investigate a car crash, a finding endorsed by Snelling, according to records obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Kaporis, who had been a police officer for more than 26 years at the time of the incident, was captured using the slurs by the in-car camera system of his police vehicle while patrolling alone, records show. The video was randomly reviewed by a supervisor, who reported Kaporis’ decision to use an anti-Black slur three times in less than 20 minutes to investigators, records show.
Kaporis “blatantly and repeatedly used vulgar homophobic and racist language, despite policy dictating that supervisors may randomly audit these videos,” COPA concluded. “This lack of deductive reasoning poses an impediment to achieving CPD policy and goals, and the use of slurs brings discredit upon CPD. The officer stated racist and homophobic comments out loud, on duty, with visible CPD insignia, and when he knew (the in-car camera system) was working. This is not only an explicit violation of CPD policy, but it presents a concern regarding Officer Kaporis’s ability to engage in unbiased policing.”
Kaporis, who joined CPD in 1995, is listed as an inactive member of CPD in records published by the Office of the Inspector General that show he has been the subject of 52 complaints since 2000, more than nearly any other member of CPD. He did not respond to a request for comment from WTTW News on Monday.
Kaporis, who told investigators he is not a racist, said he did not intentionally use racial or homophobic slurs, saying that the anti-Black slur “‘can have many meanings to [him],’ and he did not have the ‘whole picture’ of what it meant to him when he said it at that time,” records show.
“In his interview with COPA, [Kaporis] did not appear forthcoming in discussing the nature of the very provocative slurs that so easily and repeatedly rolled off his tongue and was more concerned with the consequences of someone hearing him and misunderstanding the ‘context,’ as if they would be acceptable in any context,” COPA concluded. “It was only after multiple breaks that he said words that suggesting that he knew using the loaded terms was wrong. COPA did not find these efforts sincere.”
It is unclear why the probe took more than four years to complete.
However, Chicago officials will not be able to fire Kaporis any time soon because of a long-running dispute over whether officers accused of serious misconduct have the right to ask an arbitrator — and not the Chicago Police Board — to decide their fate, and whether those proceedings must take place in public.
The Illinois Supreme Court heard arguments about that case last month. A decision could come before the end of the year.
In 2003, Kaporis was suspended for a year after being accused of filing a false police report when he claimed a forgery had occurred, records show.
Before retiring in July, Snelling twice recommended that Kaporis be fired.
Snelling stripped Kaporis of his badge and gun in April 2024 after COPA concluded Kaporis also used slurs to target Black women in a separate incident and violated CPD’s Rule 14, which prohibits officers from lying to department officials and on official forms, according to records published by the inspector general.
The incident began when Kaporis called police to his mother’s home on April 21, 2022, nine days after his police vehicle’s in-car camera system captured him repeatedly using racial slurs.
Kaporis told officers he found two women “cleaning without permission,” as part of what he described as a prank and a burglary.
Kaporis’ brother — Chicago Police Officer Christoph Kaporis — arrived at his mother’s house and pointed his weapon at a man driving a U-Haul truck and detained him before a neighbor intervened. As Christoph Kaporis left the scene, John Kaporis called police dispatchers and said an officer was facing a threat to his life.
When officers arrived at the scene, they did not find any officers at risk of imminent harm or death, records show.
Snelling recommended that Christoph Kaporis, who is also listed as an inactive member of CPD serve 180-day suspension, records show.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
