2 Investigators: Sued Cop's History Includes Firing 11 Bullets At Suicidal Suspect
(CBS) – A federal judge is threatening the city of Chicago with sanctions for failing to turn over documents in the case of a Chicago police officer who is being sued.
This follows a CBS 2 discovery that Officer Patrick Kelly had been involved in a fatal on-duty shooting. Lawyers suing Kelly for misconduct say that information was never provided.
Dave Savini reports on Kelly's past.
Esperanza Davila shows where her boyfriend Hector Hernandez was shot to death by police in 2014.
"I don't like going back to that day," she says.
Shortly after Hernandez took a selfie with their son, police were called to break up a domestic argument the couple was having.
Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) records say after police arrived, Hernandez was threatening to kill himself. Davila says she had just gotten back together with Hernandez and she never got around to lifting an old order of protection against him from 2013.
She believes he was worried that he might get sent to jail because of the police response and that is why he was attempting to commit suicide with a knife from her kitchen.
Once inside the house, two officers fired 21 shots, and 13 hit Hernandez. The shots were fired close to room where other family members stayed during this altercation. Davila says they were in the line of fire and in danger.
IPRA records say officers fired after Hernandez lunged at them with the knife. One officer, Patrick Kelly reported firing 11 times until his gun jammed.
"He fired until he couldn't fire anymore," says attorney Jeffrey Granich, who is suing Kelly and the city for a different case.
Granich and attorney Tony Romanucci are each suing the city for different cases involving Kelly. Both say they were not told Kelly shot Hernandez until the CBS 2 Investigators uncovered it. The city, they say, did not disclose it.
"Whether or not somebody is covering up for Patrick Kelly, that certainly is the appearance that's going on here," Romanucci says. "Because why was it never listed?"
Kelly joined the police force in 2004, and records CBS 2 obtained show complaints against him began piling up the next year. At least 15 complaints and five lawsuits were filed in 12 years. That includes a 2005 allegation he attacked his girlfriend, leaving her with bruises and in need of stitches.
Court records say he was not charged and not disciplined by the police department, either.
Kelly, in 2014, declined to comment about what happened to his friend Mike LaPorta in 2010. The two friends' night of heavy drinking ended with LaPorta being shot in the head. Kelly's police gun was the weapon. It was returned to him before LaPorta's attorney, Romanucci, could have it tested.
"The gun that was used in the Michael LaPorta shooting never should have been turned over to Patrick Kelly, who we are accusing of being the shooter," he says.
Kelly also is being sued for wrongfully using a Taser on Elaina Turner in 2013. She was pregnant and had a miscarriage days later. Turner's attorney, Granich, now wants every record released involving the Hernandez shooting.
There are two cases against Kelly pending at IPRA.
A Chicago Police official says they are still reexamining the LaPorta shooting and says they have a zero-tolerance policy for any proven misconduct. They also say Kelly is now on medical leave.
A spokesperson from the City of Chicago Law department tells CBS 2: "The documents in dispute are not part of the officer's disciplinary files requested by the plaintiffs' attorneys and therefore were not provided to the Law Department nor plaintiffs. Nevertheless, we are investigating why the existence of these documents was not discovered and disclosed sooner. If we find that such failure was intentional or negligent, we will take appropriate disciplinary action."
