Chicago police disciplinary officials are calling for an officer to be fired, saying surveillance footage shows he lied under oath about the 2014 fatal shooting of a 19-year-old on the West Side.
Officer Saharat Sampim said he saw Roshad McIntosh pointing a gun at a cop before that officer shot him behind a house in Lawndale. But the video evidence put Sampim in front of the house during the shooting and he could not have seen those events unfold, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability ruled.
Sampim gave detailed but false accounts of the shooting both to disciplinary investigators and lawyers taking sworn depositions in the McIntosh family’s ongoing lawsuit, according to documents the Tribune obtained through an open records request.
“The only rational motivation for Officer Sampim’s choice to make false statements was to help his partner officers by providing a statement consistent with theirs,” COPA wrote.
The agency’s findings echoed a 2017 Tribune report on the discrepancies between the footage and officers’ statements.
Top police officials agreed that Sampim should be fired, said COPA spokesman Ephraim Eaddy. An agreement between COPA and the Police Department on firing a cop typically leads to the city seeking the officer’s firing by the Chicago Police Board, though it can take weeks or months.
McIntosh’s mother, Cynthia Lane, told the Tribune she felt vindicated by the ruling.
“This is great news,” she said through tears. “He would never have pointed a gun at a police officer.”
Sampim, a 22-year department veteran, could not be reached for comment. He has been stripped of his police powers, said Police Department spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
COPA’s findings mark the latest accusation of untruthfulness by a Chicago officer. In 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice wrote that officers lied about matters large and small because they did “not believe there is much to lose by lying.”
The McIntosh shooting unfolded in August 2014 near California Avenue and Polk Street as eight officers jumped out of three cars and confronted a group of men who police had heard were armed. McIntosh bolted to the rear of a nearby house with the officers on his heels. Officer Robert Slechter later told investigators he shot and killed McIntosh after the teen pointed a gun at him from home’s back porch, where officers reported finding a loaded 9 mm pistol.
Last year, COPA ruled Slechter was justified in shooting McIntosh.
That was the second time the shooting was found justified. The Independent Police Review Authority, the city’s former disciplinary agency that was shut down after years of ineffectiveness, had found the shooting within departmental policy in 2015. Disciplinary officials reopened the case in 2017 at the family’s request after reviewing the investigation and finding what a spokeswoman described then as “insufficiencies.”
While reinvestigating the shooting, disciplinary authorities looked into the officers’ statements.
Sampim told detectives and disciplinary investigators that he was standing in a vacant lot next to the house when the shots rang out, COPA wrote. Watching from the side, Sampim said, he saw McIntosh point a gun at Slechter before being shot.
Sampim gave his initial statements before viewing the surveillance footage, which showed he was standing near the sidewalk in front of the house when the shots rang out, COPA wrote.
After viewing the footage, Sampim acknowledged in a January 2016 deposition that he was in front and to the side of the house, COPA wrote. Nonetheless, he testified that he saw the events behind the house.
COPA investigators concluded Sampim could not have seen McIntosh in the moments before the shooting because the house would have blocked his view.
“Officer Sampim could not have observed (McIntosh) pointing a firearm at Officer Slechter or any part of McIntosh’s body from his position,” COPA wrote.
dhinkel@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @dhinkel
