A woman who was shot with a Glock handgun that had been stolen from a South Side police station and then was used in a series of violent crimes has sued the city of Chicago, saying the gun was taken by police, and the theft was covered up.
Twanda Willingham was shot in her right thigh early last Aug. 14 as she was parking near her home in Auburn Gresham, according to police records and the lawsuit, which was filed this week in Cook County circuit court.
The .45-caliber Glock 21 had been turned in at a police gun buyback at St. Sabina Church on Dec. 2, 2023. It was then taken to the tactical team office at the Gresham District station.
“CPD Officers are also not immune to the allure of Glock pistols,” the lawsuit says. “CPD Officers assigned to work the Turn-In event at St. Sabina remarked on how good the Glock 21 pistol looked. CPD Officers who were not working the buyback event at St. Sabina showed up at the tactical team office to get a look at the Glock 21 pistol.”
Willingham’s lawsuit says an officer or officers took the gun from the station and sold it or gave it to someone. Willingham names Sgt. Robert Brown, who oversaw the buyback event, and other, “unknown” police officers as defendants along with the city of Chicago.
The defendants tried to cover up the gun theft, according to the suit. A tag identifying the Glock had been slipped onto another gun, and an envelope for that gun was later found in the trash.
The lawsuit notes that the name of Officer Krystal Rivera was placed on those inventory records even though “she had nothing to do with the recovery of the guns, in an attempt to make it more difficult to track the Glock 21 pistol’s disappearance and hinder recovery efforts.”
Rivera was later shot and killed on June 5 by her partner, Officer Carlos Baker, another member of the Gresham District tactical team, in what the police department has said was a friendly-fire accident.
Antonio Romanucci, a lawyer for Rivera’s family, has called for an independent investigation into the shooting, saying the department’s account “doesn’t pass the smell test.” Police and prosecutors have said Baker accidentally shot Rivera in the back when they encountered an armed man in an apartment filled with drugs.
After Willingham was shot, the stolen Glock was used in at least two other shootings before it was found on a 16-year-old boy who police saw pulling car door handles early on Nov. 30, 2024.
In an interview earlier this year, the teenager wouldn’t say where he got the gun. It’s not clear whether police investigating the gun’s theft or subsequent shootings tried to interview the boy. He pleaded guilty in April to illegally possessing the gun.
A police internal affairs investigation into the gun’s theft was closed but reopened after the Illinois Answers Project and the Chicago Sun-Times reported on the gun’s disappearance. A criminal investigation was suspended.
No one has been charged in connection with the gun’s theft. Brown is the only officer to have faced disciplinary action related to the gun’s disappearance. The department gave him a one-day suspension for a “failure to adequately secure and care for department property.”
Brown wouldn’t comment Wednesday. Nor would representatives of the police department or the city Law Department.
Willingham’s attorneys didn’t respond to a request for comment.
In an earlier interview, she described the shooting, saying a barrage of bullets struck her Buick sport-utility vehicle as she was parking with her boyfriend. One bullet tore through the front passenger door and struck her right thigh, she said.
“I felt something in my leg, like burning,” she said. “So I touched it and was, like, ‘Oh, my God, I think I just got shot.’ ”
Willingham said she moved after the shooting and had to use crutches and a wheelchair to get around.
“Why would someone want to harm me?” she said.
In her lawsuit, Willingham says city officials know the dangers Glocks posed and have even sued the gunmaker because its weapons can so easily be converted into machine guns.
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Her lawsuit asks for at least $50,000 in damages.
Peter Nickeas and Casey Toner report for the Illinois Answers Project.