No charges against chicago cop who drank several beers before shooting unarmed man in back

Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez

Cook County prosecutors spent two years conducting an “exhaustive” investigation on a Chicago police officer who drank several before beers before shooting a man to death after the man pointed a cell phone at him.

Yet not once during those two years did prosecutors speak to officer Gildardo Sierra, who had shot two other men in the six months prior to the 2011 shooting, including one fatally.

The shooting, which was caught on a dash cam video, was enough for Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy to acknowledge that allowing Sierra back on the streets after the first two incidents was a mistake.

None of that mattered to Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez – who has relentlessly prosecuted citizens who record police in public while continuously defending police misconduct.And the video as well as the fact that Sierra had been drinking was enough for the city to settle with Flint Farmer’s family for $4.1 million last year.

All that mattered was that Sierra claimed he was “in fear for his life” when Farmer pointed a cell phone at him, prompting him to shoot 16 times, seven bullets striking Farmer.

But it was the last three bullets, the ones that Sierra fired into Farmers’ back while standing over him, that killed him, according to an autopsy report.

And those are the ones that were caught on the dash cam video as another officer pulled up to the scene, which you can see above, noted by the fire flashes from the muzzle.

Sierra, who admitted to drinking “multiple beers” prior to the shooting – after first denying that he had been drinking – was not giving a breathalyzer until five hours after the shooting, which we can assume was a deliberate attempt by investigators to allow him to sober up.

Prosecutors determined his admittance to drinking had no influence in his judgement that night, but they were sure to point out to reporters that Farmer’s blood-alcohol content was .142, nearly twice the legal limit.

From Pinac