The Chicago Police Board on Thursday voted to fire a police officer for shooting an unarmed man during a chase on the South Side in 2018.
Both the Civilian Office of Police Accountability and former Chicago Police Supt. David Brown had recommended that Officer Carlos Barona be fired for the shooting on Feb. 25, 2018. The officer was accused of unnecessary use of deadly force.
The board found Barona guilty of that administrative charge in a 6-0 vote during its monthly meeting at CPD headquarters Thursday.
The officer had filed a motion on April 4 requesting his case be transferred to arbitration after a Cook County judge ruled that cops facing serious charges can bypass the board and take their cases to an outside arbitrator.
The board denied the motion before announcing the vote Thursday, stating that the evidentiary hearing in the case was completed before the March 21 ruling.
On the day of the incident, Barona and other officers were driving north on Ashland Avenue when they smelled marijuana from a passing car near 44th Street, according to COPA. The officers stopped the car and asked the occupants to step outside.
One of them fled and Barona ran after him, yelling for him to stop, COPA said. Another officer stayed behind with the car, where a 1-year-old child was inside.
Barona followed the man to a trucking dock at an industrial facility in the 1500 block of 43rd Street. The man ran under a truck and began reaching for his boot, according to COPA.
Barona told him to stop, later telling investigators he believed the man was reaching for a weapon. Barona fired four times, striking the man three times. He was transported to Stroger Hospital and recovered from his injuries.
COPA said Barona did not offer any explanation about why he thought the man was armed and admitted not seeing a firearm or anything shaped like a gun.
Searches of the area found no firearms. COPA said it was unable to locate video of the shooting, and none of the civilians involved cooperated with the investigation.
During evidentiary hearings in October, Barona testified that “even at the moment of the shooting,” he didn’t see a gun on the man and believed it was “equally likely” that the man was only in possession of drugs, according to the written ruling.
“The board recognizes that officers are asked to make split-second decisions in difficult and dangerous circumstances and that they do not have the luxury of hindsight,” the ruling states. “However, danger alone is not an unrestricted license to shoot.”