• Photo illustration: Chicago Reader; Image: Google Maps
  • The 1100 block of North Ashland, where a 2011 drive-by shooting was followed by a shooting by an off-duty Chicago police officer.

For the first time in its history, the Independent Police Review Authority has recommended that a Chicago police officer involved in a shooting be separated from the force. IPRA found that officer Francisco Perez, who was off-duty and working security for a restaurant when he witnessed a drive-by shooting on North Ashland in 2011, was “inattentive to duty” for shooting 16 times at the wrong car. It also found that he “provided false information regarding his actions.”

The desk is getting crowded with officers who have shooting cases pending. They include detective Dante Servin, who in March 2012 shot into a group of people near an alley on the west side, killing 22-year-old Rekia Boyd. Servin said he thought someone else in the group had a gun, but no gun was found. He was charged with involuntary manslaughter, but in April a judge acquitted him, ruling that he should have been charged instead with murder. IPRA’s investigation of Servin is continuing.

The shooting that Officer Perez was involved in occurred in the early morning hours of November 5, 2011. La Pasadita, a restaurant at 1140 N. Ashland, had just closed for the night, and several employees and a few other people were standing on the sidewalk out front. A blue Chrysler 300 was double-parked nearby, in the right, southbound lane, with a La Pasadita employee in the front passenger seat, and a man who was about to give him a ride home in the driver’s seat.

A breath test given to Officer Perez showed a blood alcohol content of zero.

In January 2012 the Illinois State Police determined that the bullet removed from Coronado during his surgery was fired from Officer Perez’s nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistol.

IPRA’s report concluded that Perez “fired his weapon 16 times into the rear of a vehicle occupied by an unarmed and innocent witness,” causing Coronado “great bodily harm.” The video, the radio recordings, and the crime lab findings made it clear that Perez shot only at the Chrysler, the conclusion said, and his claim that he fired at the Mitsubishi was “categorically false.”