A Chicago cop faces firing over a fatal shooting; months earlier, he shot and paralyzed another man
A Chicago police officer facing dismissal for fatally shooting an armed man during a foot pursuit is also under fire for paralyzing another man in a shooting months earlier, the Sun-Times has learned.
Chicago Police Board President Kyle Cooper ruled last week that Officer Fernando Ruiz should face disciplinary proceedings to determine whether the deadly encounter with Reginald Clay Jr. in April 2023 should cost Ruiz his job.
The decision has prompted sharp criticism from pro-law enforcement figures, including the president of Chicago’s largest police union, who said oversight officials are trying to “tar-and-feather an officer’s reputation for legally defending himself.”
But Ruiz could soon be hauled before the police board again for shooting another armed man less than eight months before Clay was killed in a Garfield Park gangway.
A spokesperson for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the city’s police oversight agency, said the investigation into the earlier shooting of Raymond Comer has been closed and is now in the “post-review process.”
When COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten makes a disciplinary recommendation after concluding an investigation, Police Supt. Larry Snelling has an opportunity to review the findings.
If the superintendent disagrees with COPA’s conclusions, a single member of the police board has to break the gridlock — like Cooper did last week.
Ruiz, meanwhile, remains on active duty in the gang investigations unit, a police spokesperson said.
Earlier shooting led to conviction, lawsuit
The first shooting happened on Aug. 12, 2022, after officers monitoring a surveillance camera saw Comer “wielding a firearm” in the 2100 block of West Adams Street, according to COPA.
Comer reached for a gun when Ruiz and other officers stopped him, prompting Ruiz to open fire, according to Cook County court records. Comer was wounded by the gunfire and rushed to Stroger Hospital, and police recovered a Glock pistol and a small amount of ecstasy.
Comer, who has a long criminal record, was ultimately indicted on felony charges of being an armed habitual criminal, possessing a gun as a felon and assaulting Ruiz, court records show.
He pleaded guilty to the gun possession charge in September 2023 and was sentenced to five years in prison. He’s serving his time at the Robinson Correctional Center in southeastern Illinois, according to state prison records.
A month before that case wound to a close, Comer filed a lawsuit in Cook County court alleging the stop was based on “racially biased surveillance” and that the chaotic police response left him paralyzed.
Ruiz arrived with other officers, approached the driver’s side of Comer’s friend’s vehicle “and immediately fired his weapon at Mr. Comer at least eleven times without issuing commands,” the lawsuit claims. Comer was trying to park the car closer to the curb when the cops showed up, and he wasn’t holding a gun at the time.
“At no point did Mr. Comer grab a weapon, much less threaten an officer with it or pose a threat to any officer or citizen of bodily harm or death,” the suit holds.
The shooting left Comer, 39, paralyzed from the waist down, according to the suit, which targets the city of Chicago, Ruiz and other officers.
The suit was filed by the law firm of Romanucci & Blandin, which notably won a $27 million civil settlement for the family of George Floyd after he was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020. Floyd’s death sparked racial justice protests across the country and renewed calls for police accountability.
Bhavani Raveendran, a partner at the firm, said Comer's plea deal "should have no impact on the civil case," insisting that simply possessing a gun "does not authorize any government official to use deadly force."
"It is heartbreaking that less than a year after Officer Ruiz shot Mr. Comer, resulting in Mr. Comer's permanent paralysis, Officer Ruiz used his gun to take the life of another Chicago resident," Raveendran said in a statement. "It is troubling that over the course of a few months Officer Ruiz appears to have shot two different Black Chicago residents without justification.
"There should have been ways for Officer Ruiz to de-escalate these encounters. The city of Chicago must do a better job of preventing its officers from perpetuating gun violence in the city."
‘Fernando Ruiz needs to pay’
Under city ordinance, COPA is required to release video footage and other materials related to police shootings. But in Comer’s case, Judge William G. Gamboney ordered the records sealed while the criminal proceedings played out. They still haven’t been released publicly.
COPA has already released jarring body camera footage of the fatal shooting of Clay on April 15, 2023.
Videos show Clay walking away from Ruiz and another officer after they parked in the 3800 block of West Flournoy Street and approached him. Clay, 24, is then shown fleeing through a gangway into a backyard, then into another gangway that was blocked off.
After Clay turns toward the officers with a gun in his right hand, he shifts the weapon to his left hand and apparently tries to put it down on a back porch, the video shows. Ruiz then opens fire as Clay appears to scream and grab for his chest.
The chase lasted only about 15 seconds.
Clay’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit in federal court days after the shooting, alleging that Ruiz had no reason to stop Clay and shot him when his hands were raised. The case is pending.
In a report dated May 24, COPA found there was “insufficient evidence that Officer Ruiz’s use of deadly force violated CPD policy.”
“Nevertheless, COPA does not find clear and convincing evidence that Officer Ruiz’s use of deadly force was within CPD policy,” according to the report. “… [T]he evidence shows that Officer Ruiz could have, but failed to, use force mitigation tactics, placing himself directly in [Clay’s] path with no option other than to use deadly force.”
As a result, the allegation tied directly to the shooting was not sustained, COPA found.
Still, the agency found that Ruiz violated the department’s foot pursuit policy and failed to notify a dispatcher about the chase, activate his body camera in a timely manner and use “de-escalation techniques.”
COPA recommended that Ruiz be fired. But Police Supt. Larry Snelling argued in a response letter that the oversight agency didn’t take into account the “reasonableness” of the chase or the “totality of the circumstances.”
Snelling concluded that Ruiz only failed to make a notification about the pursuit and turn on his camera quickly enough, pushing instead for a two-day suspension.
Cooper, the police board president, sided with COPA on Oct. 17. Ruiz’s future will now be decided after a hearing before the full board or, if the officer chooses, through public or private arbitration.
That depends on an ongoing court battle over how the most serious police misconduct cases are handled.
Clay’s family, who sat in the audience wearing red shirts with his image and nickname, “Lil Red,” spoke during public comment and thanked Cooper for agreeing with COPA’s disciplinary recommendation. They also blasted Snelling, accusing him of giving them “false hope” during meetings with him.
Tara Henderson, Reginald Clay Jr.’s mother, said Thursday’s ruling was just the beginning of their fight.
“Fernando Ruiz needs to pay for what he did to my son,” she said. “All because you chose to chase him when they told you not to. We wouldn’t be talking about any of this if you didn’t just listen. I feel like we are just getting started.”
John Catanzara, president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, assailed COPA as an “agenda-driven” agency that’s out to get cops, doubling down on claims the union made in a lawsuit accusing COPA of being biased against police.
Catanzara described Cooper’s ruling as “a farce” that he said highlights why the union pushed to give its members the option to have serious disciplinary cases heard by an arbitrator, instead of the police board. The union is currently appealing a Cook County judge’s decision that granted officers that right but called for public arbitration hearings.
Catanzara insisted that simply violating the foot pursuit policy “is not a fireable offense.”
“Nobody wants to have these real conversations about these armed criminals and what they need a gun, especially with an extended magazine, for — as if they’re out for self-protection,” he said.
“It’s like they want the officer to get shot or killed first.”