{"id":374323,"date":"2025-11-12T20:29:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/374323\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T20:29:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:29:11","slug":"2-chicago-cops-in-wrigleyville-brawl-kept-jobs-after-suspensions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/374323\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Chicago cops in Wrigleyville brawl kept jobs after suspensions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two Chicago police officers who started a drunken daytime brawl at a Wrigleyville pizza restaurant in 2019 reached settlement agreements with the city that allowed them to keep their jobs after each served a one-year suspension.<\/p>\n

In records made public last week, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability disclosed both officers were recommended to be separated from the Chicago Police Department in September 2021. That month, CPD \u2014 at the time led by Superintendent David Brown<\/a> \u2014 requested the city\u2019s Law Department bring administrative charges to fire officers Salvador Perez and Moises Diaz.<\/p>\n

COPA and CPD found the two officers violated several Police Department rules when they both struck a person in the face without justification, were intoxicated and breached the public peace by instigating a fight.<\/p>\n

Perez, COPA said, also grabbed a woman\u2019s throat and threw her several feet onto the pavement. Diaz, on the other hand, was knocked unconscious during the violent fracas and later told investigators that he had no memory of the incident.<\/p>\n

Hours after the fight, both officers still had a blood-alcohol concentration that far exceeded the legal limit to drive, COPA found.<\/p>\n

Before any administrative charges were filed with the Chicago Police Board, though, the city agreed to let Perez and Diaz each serve a one-year suspension from CPD. A Police Department spokesperson said this week that both men had already served their time.<\/p>\n

In response to questions from the Tribune about the settlement agreements, a spokesperson for the city\u2019s Law Department said in a statement: \u201cIn every case, we assess the strength of the evidence, the credibility of witnesses, and the likelihood of prevailing at a Police Board hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cook County court records indicate Diaz remains a patrol officer in CPD\u2019s Ogden District (10th); however, Perez is no longer included in the city\u2019s database of active employees. Neither man responded to the Tribune\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n

According to COPA records, Perez and Diaz attended the Thursday, May 23, 2019, game at Wrigley Field<\/a> between the Cubs and Philadelphia Phillies. First pitch was at 1:20 p.m., and the Phillies eventually won 9-7. After the game, the two officers barhopped around Wrigleyville. A bar security guard later told investigators that the two cops \u201cwere \u2018loud and belligerent\u2019 as they complained about the cost of beer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just after 7 p.m., the two stopped into Dimo\u2019s Pizza at 3463 N. Clark St., and Diaz asked the staff if he could use the employees\u2019 restroom in the back. While urinating, COPA said, Diaz refused to close the bathroom door, despite pleas from Dimo\u2019s staff. Three Dimo\u2019s employees removed Diaz from the restroom and tried to throw him out, but Perez then intervened.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the staff repeatedly told both men to leave, Officer Diaz grabbed at one of the employees, and Officer Perez joined in the altercation,\u201d COPA investigators wrote. \u201cThe officers pushed, shoved, grabbed, grappled with, and yelled at the staff members.\u201d<\/p>\n

Members of the staff corralled both cops into the vestibule leading to Clark Street. Perez then displayed his CPD badge and demanded the pizza he\u2019d ordered. Meanwhile, Diaz threw at least one punch that connected with a civilian, COPA said.<\/p>\n

The fight \u201cspilled out onto the street,\u201d and Diaz was soon \u201crendered unconscious,\u201d but COPA didn\u2019t make clear who struck him. Still images from cellphone video show Diaz lying face up in the street as Perez stood nearby. It was then that Perez physically confronted two bystanders who, apparently, tried to check on Diaz\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs Officer Diaz laid motionless in the street, an unknown bystander approached him, appearing to assess the officer\u2019s condition. Officer Perez turned towards the bystander and forcefully shoved him, immediately throwing him several feet down the street,\u201d COPA wrote. \u201c(A woman) then stepped off the sidewalk and onto the street as she looked at Officer Diaz with apparent concern. Officer Perez suddenly turned, lunged at (her) and forcefully grabbed her by the throat, pushing her by the throat several feet down the street.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his interview with COPA investigators, Perez \u201cconsistently attempted to minimize his culpability by portraying himself and Officer Diaz as the victims in the incident, and the Dimo\u2019s staff members as the sole aggressors,\u201d COPA said.<\/p>\n

Before the fight in Wrigleyville, Perez and Diaz were both assigned to CPD\u2019s Ogden District as patrol officers, records show. In the more than six years since, Perez was the subject of 12 additional misconduct complaints, though none were sustained, according to records from the city\u2019s Office of Inspector General.<\/p>\n

Chicago\u2019s police discipline apparatus has been largely slowed in the last two years amid a legal fight between the city and the union that represents rank-and-file officers over public access to the most serious cases of alleged police misconduct.<\/p>\n

In September, the Fraternal Order of Police appealed a ruling from the Illinois Appellate Court, and the state Supreme Court is expected to issue its own ruling before the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Chicago police officers who started a drunken daytime brawl at a Wrigleyville pizza restaurant in 2019 reached…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":374324,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[54601,960,180253,5386,1818,62119,69869],"class_list":{"0":"post-374323","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-brawl","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cops","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-suspensions","14":"tag-wrigleyville"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115538622536542576","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374323\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}