Politics Police Misconduct Agency Identified Troubling Pattern of Stops of Black Chicagoans in Downtown Police District, Records Shows

Heather Cherone | October 27, 2025, 8:15 am

The agency tasked with investigating misconduct by Chicago police officers identified a troubling pattern of undocumented and unprofessional stops of Black people in a downtown police district, according to a document obtained by WTTW News.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which is better known as COPA, received more than 50 complaints that tactical team officers assigned to patrol Lincoln Park, West Town, Old Town, River North, Streeterville, the Gold Coast and parts of Logan Square conducted “problematic” traffic stops and searches in 2024, according to a letter from Steffany Hreno, COPA’s director of investigations, to the head of Near North (18th) Police District.

More than 90% of the complaints investigated by COPA were sparked by officers’ decisions to pull over Black people, according to the letter.

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“While COPA recognizes that some of these street stops and traffic stops may have been justified, in their totality, the racial disparity in the stops may be indicative of implicit bias and/or racial profiling,” according to the letter to former 18th District Commander Michael Barz.

The officers also engaged in “unprofessional and disrespectful conduct” that violates department policy that included the “use of profanities, insults and threats of force,” according to the letter, which said some of the inappropriate conduct was witnessed by their direct supervisor, Sgt. Erick Seng.

Read the full letter.

Four members of the tactical team named in COPA’s letter have been stripped of their police powers, according to a department spokesperson.

The letter about COPA’s concerns involving the actions of the 18th District tactical team has been entered as evidence in two pending federal lawsuits, court records show.

The letter’s stark conclusion could help the attorneys for the drivers prove to a judge or jury that city officials knew the tactical team was making improper and racially biased stops and did nothing to stop them. That could increase the city’s liability significantly, making it more costly to settle and increasing the likelihood a jury would award the drivers a significant award.

The terms of the federal court order that requires CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers obligates the city to set up an early-warning system that would identify problematic officers and get them off the street.

That system has yet to be implemented citywide, despite years of attempts. Mayor Brandon Johnson’s 2026 spending plan, if approved, would require CPD leaders to submit monthly reports to the City Council about progress on the system.

Representatives of CPD did not respond to a detailed list of questions from WTTW News. None of the officers responded to specific questions from WTTW News about their conduct and the complaints that have been filed against them.

The eight officers named in COPA’s letter have been named in 13 lawsuits filed by Chicago drivers who said they were improperly stopped and searched near the North Michigan Avenue shopping district because they are Black, according to an analysis of court records by WTTW News.

Chicago taxpayers have paid a combined $378,000 to resolve six of those lawsuits, records show. Each of the settlements were authorized by Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson Lowry and did not require City Council approval.

The most expensive settlement went to Joshua Farris, who was in a car with his wife and two children that stopped near Michigan Avenue and Superior Street on Nov. 8, 2021. Three officers assigned to the 1863 tactical team ordered Ferris out of the car and handcuffed him, without giving Ferris a reason.

Shortly afterward, his wife, Karen Hollis, was also ordered out of the car and handcuffed. While Hollis was released, Ferris was charged with reckless conduct, a parking violation, a license plate violation and operating an uninsured motor vehicle. All of the charges were later dismissed.

Had the city paid Farris and Hollis just one dollar more, it would have required Chicago City Council approval under city rules, ensuring a public hearing into the actions of those officers more than two years before COPA’s warning.

The most recent lawsuit alleging misconduct by members of the 18th District tactical team reviewed by WTTW News was filed Sept. 8, records show.

A spokesperson for the Law Department declined to comment on the lawsuits.

The city is facing a separate class-action lawsuit that accuses CPD of targeting Black and Latino drivers with a massive campaign of traffic stops in the latest chapter of the city’s “long and sordid history” of racist discrimination.

Officers assigned to the 18th District tactical team stopped drivers for stopping too far away from the curb, stopping in a no-parking zone and for failing to wear a seatbelt, which COPA calls “pretextual,” according to COPA’s letter.

The officers demonstrated a “consistent” failure to document the stops, as required by CPD policy and failed to record them by activating their body-worn cameras, according to COPA’s letter.

Officers Richard Rodriquez, Joseph Vecchio, Kenneth Sunde, Mario Fuentes, Nicu Tohatan and Crystina Kittrell all earn more than $108,000 annually, while Officer Michael Donnelly earns more than $118,000, records show. Seng earns more than $147,000, records show.

Vecchio, Fuentes, Tohatan and Donnelly have been stripped of their police powers, according to a department spokesperson.

Sunde, Kittrell and Rodriquez remain on active duty in the 18th District, while Seng is detailed to the Gang Investigation Division, according to a department spokesperson.

There were 22 open complaints against the eight 1863 tactical team officers at the time of COPA’s letter to Barz, while “many of the closed investigations against these members have resulted in sustained findings,” according to the letter.

Fuentes has recorded 10 sustained complaints in the past five years, according to COPA’s letter. Several other members of the team, including Seng, have between four and eight sustained complaints during the same time period, according to the letter.

Those cases resulted in disciplinary recommendations ranging from a reprimand to 30-day suspension, according to the letter.

There were 51 open probes of the eight officers, with at least 70% involving traffic stops as of Sept. 1, according to records obtained by WTTW News.

Barz, who was named commander of the 18th District in June 2023, left the department in April 2025 at the rank of captain and was placed on the ineligible for rehiring list after two sustained complaints that he created a “hostile work environment,” according to records obtained by WTTW News through a freedom of information act request.

Barz is now collecting a taxpayer-funded pension of nearly $132,000, according to records obtained by WTTW News.

In a statement to WTTW News, Barz said that the document provided by the Department of Human Resources to WTTW News, which was signed by Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, erroneously stated that the complaints against him were sustained.

Barz said he has appealed his inclusion on the ineligible for rehiring list and has made a formal complaint with CPD officials.

Representatives of CPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WTTW News about Barz’s statements.

In July 2020, Barz was tapped by former Chicago Police Supt. David Brown to lead the citywide Community Safety Team, created in response to surging violence across Chicago in 2020.

While assigned to that unit, Officer Ella French was killed and another officer seriously wounded while making a traffic stop in Englewood on Aug. 7, 2021.

The Chicago City Council agreed to pay $950,000 to a former Chicago Police Department lieutenant who said his supervisors retaliated against him after he resisted Barz’s orders to make “illegal” traffic stops.

Lt. Franklin Paz accused CPD officials of violating the state’s Whistleblower Act by reassigning him to the overnight shift in a South Side police district after he objected when Barz demanded that Paz order the members of the citywide Community Safety Team he supervised to stop at least 10 Chicago drivers every day.

The city paid nearly $681,000 to private attorneys to defend that lawsuit, according to records obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Between Dec. 1, 2023, and Sept. 1, 2025, the eight officers identified by COPA as being responsible for the problematic traffic stops have been named in 82 complaints, according to records obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act Request.

Vecchio has been named in 52 complaints; Rodriquez in 29 complaints; Tohatan in 26 complaints; Sunde in 17 complaints; Fuentes in 15 complaints; Kittrell in 14 complaints and Seng in 10 complaints, records show.

Nearly 80% of those complaints involve traffic stops throughout the 18th Police District, records show. Others involve complaints about pedestrian stops, excessive force and domestic violence.

After COPA warned leaders of the 18th District about the conduct of the tactical team, 21 complaints were filed against eight of its members, with the vast majority alleging improper traffic stops and searches, records show.

Eleven complaints have been fully investigated, records show.

In two of the complaints resolved by COPA, investigators found five officers violated multiple department rules during three separate traffic stops, with Rodriquez and Donnelly receiving five-day suspensions and Sunde getting a one-day suspension, records show. Vecchio received a reprimand and Kittrell’s record reflects a “violation noted.”

Eight complaints involve traffic stops that occurred in the 400 block of north Wabash Avenue, including one of the complaints resolved by COPA, records show.

In one of those complaints, filed in November 2024 and still under investigation, an employee of a restaurant said he watched Vecchio and Tohatan routinely stop drivers as they pulled up to the valet parking area.

“They falsely arrest either the passenger or driver, so they can search the entire car,” according to the complaint. “The two officers come outside of the restaurant every day and harass our black customers. I do not think it’s fair to overuse their power to harass black people.”

Another four complaints involved traffic stops near Cambridge Avenue and Oak Street, in Cabrini-Green, a complex operated by the Chicago Housing Authority that sits just west of the tony Gold Coast.

Traffic stops along Cambridge Avenue have also sparked two lawsuits, records show.

Three investigations of complaints sparked by traffic stops have been completed by COPA, but Snelling has objected to COPA’s findings, or the discipline officials recommended, records show. The results of those probes will not be released until that dispute is resolved or officials ask the Chicago Police Board to resolve the matter.

Investigators working for CPD resolved six cases.

At least six complaints against the officers have resulted in sustained findings of misconduct, according to records obtained by WTTW News through the Freedom of Information Act. None of the officers were suspended for more than five days, records show.

CPD officials declined to release any information about nine complaints, since the officers involved have not yet been formally notified of the charges they face, records show.

Four complaints have been closed with no finding of wrongdoing by the officers, while another 16 were closed without reaching a conclusion about the conduct of the officers, records show.

One of those complaints involves the events of Feb. 24, 2024, when Rodriquez struck a car in order to conduct a traffic stop near Chicago Avenue and Dearborn Street, records show.

Rodriquez told investigators he attempted to stop the car by pulling in front of it because its license plates were expired and caused a crash. That violates department policy.

Rodriquez and Vecchio did not report the crash to the Office of Emergency Management Communications as required by department policy, records show.

The records obtained by WTTW News do not detail what discipline, if any, the officers received.

Police misconduct investigators have now warned the leaders of two police districts that the officers under their command were routinely engaging in misconduct that violated Chicago Police Department rules and put Chicagoans at risk of a violent encounter with officers.

COPA officials sent a similar letter to Harrison (11th) Police District Commander Davina Ward in March 2024, just days after four Chicago police officers pulled over Dexter Reed and killed him in a barrage of gunfire after he fired at officers.

In addition to investigating police misconduct, city ordinance charges COPA with identifying and addressing patterns of police misconduct and gives COPA the authority to make policy recommendations to improve CPD and reduce incidents of police misconduct.

Snelling responded to COPA’s warnings to the commanders of the 11th and 18th districts in March, three months after COPA warned about the way officers were making traffic stops in some of Chicago’s wealthiest neighborhoods and nearly a year after COPA’s warning about traffic stops on the city’s West Side, home to a majority of Black and Latino residents.

But Snelling did not address the substance of COPA’s warning, but instructed the agency to communicate with him, not district commanders.

“While I understand some of these recommendations are specific to a district, it is important that I am aware that COPA is making these recommendations,” Snelling wrote in a letter obtained by WTTW News through a freedom of information act request. “This is to ensure that the recommended actions are within CPD policy and to determine whether such recommendations should be incorporated in other districts to ensure consistency across the department.”

The vast majority of the stops COPA warned CPD brass about on both districts appear to be pretextual stops, which department policy allows officers to make in an effort to find evidence of unrelated crimes by stopping drivers to investigate minor registration or equipment violations.

Snelling has forcefully defended the need to continue allowing police officers to stop drivers for improper or expired registration plates or stickers and headlight, taillight and license plate light offenses, saying that Chicago’s streets will become more “dangerous for everyone” driving if they are banned.

However, a majority of members of the commission, known as the CCPSA, believe those stops “do more harm than good and should therefore be prohibited, with some exceptions.”

The CCPSA has the authority to approve new CPD policies.

Four months after the CCPSA objected to CPD’s proposal for a new policy governing traffic stops, the new rules have yet to be finalized.

COPA’s decision to wait until after Reed’s death to warn police brass about the troubling pattern of traffic stops prompted a rebuke from CCPSA President Anthony Driver, Jr., and Vice President Remel Terry, and contributed to their decision to seek a vote of no confidence in COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten.

“This failure may have put Chicago residents at greater risk of harm and resulted in a missed opportunity to address a frequent source of complaints,” Driver and Terry wrote. “This demonstrates a failure of leadership, compromises public safety, and undermines COPA’s mission to address patterns of police misconduct, and make policy recommendations to improve CPD and reduce incidents of police misconduct.”

Driver, who is running to represent Illinois’ 7th District in Congress, is no longer president of the police oversight board known as CCPSA but remains a member. Kersten resigned in February, before CCPSA could move to terminate her, denying that she did anything wrong.

COPA concluded that officers violated the constitutional rights of at least two other drivers on Chicago’s West Side less than three weeks before Reed’s death. Snelling concurred with COPA’s conclusions and found those violations merited suspensions ranging from three days to 25 days for each officer that participated in the stop.

The results of COPA’s probe into Reed’s death have yet to be announced. Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke announced in August that none of the officers who fired 96 shots in 41 seconds at Reed will be charged with a crime.

WTTW News’ Jared Rutecki contributed to this story.

WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 |

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