A veteran police officer accused of arresting the wrong man in a West Side drug deal and then lying about it in court blamed mistaken identity while fighting for his job during testimony Friday at a Chicago Police Board hearing.
According to testimony, other officers had arrested the actual drug dealer, but Officer Jose Velez ordered him released and took Lance Conley into custody outside his home.
On Friday, Velez said he mixed the two up because both were wearing dark-colored clothing. He denied calling Conley the N-word or knowing that his fellow officers had already arrested the actual suspect.
The hearing is scheduled to continue Monday. Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy is seeking to fire Velez, an 11-year veteran, on charges of lying in court, making a false arrest report and engaging in conduct that brings discredit to the Police Department. If the board finds him guilty of any of the offenses, it will then impose the punishment. If he is dismissed, Velez could sue in Cook County court to try to win his job back.
In an unusual mass email last month to the department’s approximately 10,000 rank-and-file officers, McCarthy stressed the importance of honesty as he announced he was seeking the firing of another officer for lying about his role in an off-duty shooting.
“Integrity is at the core of our ability to effectively police our communities,” he wrote.
In June, Cook County prosecutors charged four police officers — three from Chicago and one from Glenview — with perjury for allegedly lying under oath at a routine court hearing about a drug arrest captured on video.
On Friday, Conley also took the stand, testifying that on a warm summer afternoon in 2010, he finished work, took his family to McDonald’s and then decided to walk to the corner store for some cigarettes. Just outside the South Austin neighborhood home where he grew up, Conley saw a group of men standing around a car talking about basketball star Lebron James being traded from Cleveland to Miami and he decided to “add my two cents,” he said. About seven minutes later, three tactical police officers pulled up on the block, a video recording showed.
Two of the officers arrested two men involved in a hand-to-hand heroin sale. But then Velez stopped Conley as he walked away, handcuffed him and ordered the actual drug dealer released.
“I was kind of in shock,” testified Conley, saying he turned to look at the officers who had released the drug dealer on Velez’s order. “They looked at me like they didn’t know what was going on themselves.”
On Friday, Velez took frequent drinks from a water bottle as Conley testified, with his purple dress shirt untucked.
In a police report, Velez wrote he saw Conley put a bag of heroin in the grass near a tow zone sign. At a preliminary hearing in court and again at trial, he testified that he saw Conley hide the drugs and then walk away quickly after looking in the officer’s direction.
But video cameras installed at Conley’s home contradicted Velez’s account. Conley was cleared at trial and filed a lawsuit against the city, settling for $99,000.
“It saved my life,” Conley said of the video, during a break in Friday’s hearing.
Conley, 43, said he doesn’t believe Velez about the mistaken identity, saying his hairstyle, skin color and age differed dramatically from the drug dealer. He speculated that the long dreadlocks he wore then led Velez to target him.
“We look nothing alike,” he said. “I don’t see a veteran officer getting that mixed up.”
After his arrest, Conley said, he remained on home confinement for eight months until he raised enough money to make bail. His father, who shared the bungalow with Conley’s wife and daughter, died four months after his son’s arrest. Conley believes the stress from his arrest played a part in his death.
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“He thought they were going to railroad me and send me to the penitentiary,” he said.
Cook County prosecutors knew about the video but still took Conley to trial. A spokeswoman for the state’s attorneys office told the Tribune in 2013 that the case was prosecuted “in good faith” based on the officers’ sworn statements.
Conley said he moved to Iowa to escape police harassment after the incident. Officers had parked outside his house, staring him down and sometimes even waving, he said. In court papers, the city had acknowledged that officers had harassed him.
Conley said he is hopeful that Velez will be fired.
“You’ve got rogue cops out there doing this to innocent people, not just me,” he said. “You can’t just pick random people out and send them to jail. You mess people’s lives up with this stuff.”
Twitter @SteveSchmadeke