A photo of two white Chicago officers posing with a black man in antlers has been discovered. The Chicago tried to hide the photo from the masses but after a Cook County judge denied a request that the photo stay private, it was published by the Chicago Sun Times.
The photo was given to the Chicago PD by federal prosecutors in 2013, which led to officer Jerome Finnigan, on the right, being fired. Timothy McDermott, on the left, had been incarcerated after being sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2011 after being convicted of being the ring leader of a crooked cop crew that committed a slew of robberies, home invasions and other crimes.
In a statement, Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said the photo is “disgusting.”
“The despicable actions of these two former officers have no place in our police department or in our society,” he said. “As the superintendent of this department, and as a resident of our city, I will not tolerate this kind of behavior, and that is why neither of these officers works for CPD today. I fired one of the officers and would have fired the other if he hadn’t already been fired by the time I found out about the picture. Our residents deserve better than this, as do the thousands of good men and women in this department.”
Finnigan claimed that the black man in the picture, taken between 1999 and 2003, has been brought in for carrying “20 bags of weed” but he didn’t arrest him due to him not having a criminal background. He said snapping the disgraceful picture was a “spur of the moment” thing after the man gave them the rifles.
“Appearing to treat an African-American man not as a human being but as a hunted animal is disgraceful and shocks the conscience,” wrote the police board when they voted to terminate Finnigan.
Finnigan is now appealing this decision in court.
“I am embarrassed by my participation in this photograph,” said McDermott when interviewed about the photo in 2013. “I made a mistake as a young, impressionable police officer who was trying to fit in.”