The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is recommending that two Grand Crossing (3rd) District police officers be stripped of their police powers after finding that they drew blood from a man while trying to pry open his mouth with a pair of wooden tongue depressors, recently released records show.
According to a July 29 memo from COPA Chief Administrator LaKenya White to interim Superintendent Fred Waller obtained in a Freedom of Information request, Sgt. Steven Holden and Officer Sonja Brown were strip-searching a man at the 3rd District station when Brown said she saw the man put what is only described in the memo as “contraband” in his mouth.
Chicago Fire Department paramedics took the man to a hospital, the memo stated, where Holden and Brown were among a group of officers who assembled in the man’s hospital room. The man was shackled to the bed, the memo states, and refused Holden’s orders to “spit” out whatever was in his mouth.
Holden and Brown then allegedly got a pair of tongue depressors and began trying to pry the man’s mouth open.
“Despite (the arrestee) bleeding from the mouth area, Sgt. Holden and PO Brown continued trying to physically and forcefully insert the tongue depressor(s) into (the arrestee’s) clenched and closed mouth for approximately 12 minutes,” the memo read.
At that point, the man’s sister arrived at the hospital and was allowed to speak with him in private, the memo states. The woman then apparently told the officers outside the hospital room that her brother no longer had “contraband” in his mouth.
Officers then got ready to bring the man back to the 3rd District, the memo states.
“Blood can be seen on the hospital bed,” the memo said. “Medical personnel are not seen at any time.”
White recommended that both Holden and Brown be relieved of their police powers. CPD representatives said Wednesday afternoon that both remain on active duty in the Grand Crossing District. Neither officer immediately responded to phone calls seeking comment and it wasn’t immediately clear if they had lawyers representing them.
Brown has been with the department for about four years, records show. In that time, data from the Chicago Office of Inspector General show she has been the subject of three investigations, but none of the allegations against her had been sustained. Office of Inspector General records show that Holden has been investigated 12 times between 2014, when he joined CPD, and 2025.
One of those investigations, in 2019, found that Holden, along with two other 3rd District officers, arrested and searched a man without justification as he was trying to get into his apartment, records show. According to the case file
More Top Picks Best Smart Light Strips For Bias Lighting
from that probe, Holden and the other officers approached the man, handcuffed him and pushed him against a car to search him while he asked them to stop and asked why they were searching him.Investigators recommended that Holden, who they deemed the lead officer in the search, be suspended for 10 days and receive Fourth Amendment training.
Holden is also named as a defendant in three federal lawsuits alleging Fourth Amendment violations, filed in 2019, 2020 and 2021. All three involved searches of a Woodlawn apartment building on the 6800 block of South Dorchester Avenue, records show.
Court records show that only one of the suits, on behalf of a woman and three children whose apartment was allegedly raided three separate times, remains open.
Clarification: This story has been updated to reflect that COPA called for the two officers to be stripped of their police powers, not fired, as the investigation proceeds.