CHICAGO (CBS) — A Chicago Police officer has been charged with two felonies, for shooting an unarmed man during a confrontation at a CTA Red Line subway station last year.
Officer Melvina Bogard, 32, is charged with one count each of aggravated battery and official misconduct in the shooting of Ariel Roman on Feb. 28, 2020 at the Grand stop on the Red Line, according to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office.
Prosecutors said Bogard turned herself in Thursday morning, and will appear at a bond hearing Thursday afternoon at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown in April moved to fire Bogard and her partner, Officer Bernard Butler, for violating multiple department policies, calling the shooting of Roman unnecessary.
The two officers confronted Roman after seeing him illegally move between cars of a Red Line train on Feb. 28, 2020.
Videos from several surveillance cameras on the train show Bogard and Butler talking to Roman on the train, before he walks away from them. Moments later, Bogard follows him and motions to him to get off the train. The surveillance videos do not have sound, so it’s not clear exactly what they said to each other.
Another surveillance video from outside the train shows both officers talking to Roman before he tries to walk away, and one of the officers grabs his arm. A struggle ensues, and the officers tackle Roman to the ground, mostly out of sight of that camera.
A passenger’s cell phone video of the struggle shows the officers struggling to hold down Roman and trying to handcuff him.
****WARNING: Video contains graphic content and explicit language****
In the video, an officer is heard yelling for Roman to “stop resisting” – something the officer screamed more than 10 times. The officers then both deploy their Tasers. But Roman breaks free, staggers to his feet and appears to wipe his face, apparently from pepper spray. Bogard then steps back and pulls her weapon and yells, “Sir, put your f***ing hands down!” as Butler yells, “Shoot him!”
Seconds later, Bogard draws her weapon and shoots Roman. After that first shot, Roman runs up the escalator, the officers give chase, and a second shot rings out off camera. Various surveillance cameras from the busy Grand station in River North show passengers fleeing after the shots ring out, and other police officers arriving on scene.
In April, Brown moved to fire Bogard and Butler, arguing Bogard violated department rules for deploying her Taser weapon and then shooting Roman, which Brown said was unnecessary because Roman posed no deadly threat to her or anybody else. Brown also accused Butler of violating department rules in the use of his Taser weapon and by failing to use approved de-escalation techniques to arrest Roman, Brown said. Butler was also cited for placing Roman in danger for grabbing him on the edge of the subway platform.
Brown concluded that both officers should be fired. That final decision is up to the Police Board, which will hold hearings on the case.
Roman was charged with resisting arrest after the incident, but the charges later were dropped.
Roman was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital after the shooting, and underwent at least two surgeries. Rodriguez said the gunshot wound to his stomach destroyed the tissue connecting his bladder to his small intestine, and the bullet that hit him in the buttocks is still lodged in his back, and can’t be removed, because it’s too close to his sciatic nerve.
Roman has sued the city and the officers for excessive force. The lawsuit seeks unspecified financial damages. Roman’s attorneys said the city also needs to make sure all officers are properly trained, noting Bogard opened fire in a busy mass transit station, where an innocent bystander could have been shot over an incident that didn’t require deadly force to begin with.
Attorney Gloria Schmidt Rodriguez has said Roman has been diagnosed with anxiety disorder, and began suffering a panic attack while riding a Red Line train that day.
Roman’s attorneys said, while he has acknowledged moving between the cars of a CTA train — which is a violation of city ordinance — he did not commit any crime that would have warranted him being arrested, and was not armed or otherwise a threat to police or anyone else.
“The officers – who are trained – should have relaxed, and chilled, and taken time, called backup. The notion that an officer would shoot her service revolver twice is astonishing,” Roman’s attorney, Andrew Stroth, said last year.
Use of force experts who reviewed the video with CBS have said the footage is problematic, particularly given that Roman was walking away when he was shot.
“The law simply doesn’t allow what I saw in the video,” University of Pittsburgh law professor David A. Harris said last year.