Chicago Police Sgt. Syed Quadri won't be fired for overseeing a botched 2019 raid that saw officers repeatedly detain a 16-year-old boy without justification — and two months after that decision, he was promoted to lieutenant. The case has become the latest flashpoint in a widening debate over how the Chicago Police Department decides who moves up the ranks, even as watchdogs recommend termination.
The incident dates back to December 24, 2019, when a parking garage manager near Loyola University's Rogers Park campus called 911 to report teens trespassing, according to WTTW News. The department sent 20 members to respond, and Quadri oversaw nearly two dozen officers who repeatedly detained 16-year-old Jaylin Stiger and his 13-year-old brother. Officers stopped Stiger at the Loyola CTA Red Line station, then a second time in his building hallway, and a third time outside his apartment building, where five officers including Quadri tackled and handcuffed him. In total, police detained the same teen four times in less than 30 minutes and held him handcuffed for 10 minutes before releasing him.
During the encounter, officer Jesada Laksanaprom pointed his taser at 13-year-old Lazerick James, while officer Guadalupe Aguirre pointed his gun at the boy. Police also handcuffed James. Quadri ultimately ordered Stiger and James released after approximately five minutes. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability later concluded, in January 2024, that Quadri was most culpable for the harm suffered by Stiger and other civilians, finding he committed civil rights violations, unnecessary force against a minor, and failure to activate his body-worn camera.
Watchdog Sought Firing, Superintendent Chose Suspension
COPA urged Superintendent Larry Snelling to fire Quadri over the incident, but in April 2024, Snelling instead determined that Quadri should be suspended for just two days. Snelling also urged that two other raid officers receive a combined 11 days of suspension. According to the same WTTW report, three other officers involved in the raid resigned before COPA completed its probe, while investigators separately concluded that nine other officers violated dozens of department policies, recommending they receive a combined 172 days of suspension. COPA recommended Aguirre be suspended for 60 days and Laksanaprom for 20 days; the report also noted Laksanaprom wore a Punisher patch in violation of CPD policy.
In May 2026, deputy inspector general Lakenya White wrote that COPA had to accept Snelling's two-day suspension decision on procedural rather than substantive grounds, and Chicago Police Board president Steven Block determined that White's suspension recommendation would stand. Two months after that outcome, Quadri was promoted to lieutenant — a jump that now puts him among the department's supervisory ranks earning $160,746 annually, assigned to the Near North (18th) Police District, which includes Lincoln Park and the Gold Coast.
Not an Isolated Case, Watchdogs Say
Quadri is the second CPD member recently promoted after misconduct investigators urged firing. As Hoodline previously reported, Officer Brian Collins was promoted to sergeant in June 2025 despite a COPA recommendation that he be fired over an unjustified 2017 shooting of a 16-year-old, after city lawyers quietly dropped disciplinary charges before the Chicago Police Board could rule. A separate case, also detailed in Hoodline's earlier coverage of officers flagged for misconduct, involved Sgt. Ernesto Guzman-Sanchez and Sgt. Christopher Lockhart, both promoted in spring 2025 despite COPA findings that they were responsible for sexual misconduct and domestic violence, according to the Invisible Institute.
Quadri's record extends beyond the 2019 raid. Two months before his lieutenant promotion, he was named in an April 2024 COPA misconduct complaint after a police lieutenant reported that he kneeled on a driver's neck without justification during an April 2024 traffic stop, according to filings from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. Chicago taxpayers have also paid out over the years because of his conduct: the city settled a federal civil rights lawsuit, Jarret v. City of Chicago, for $27,500 in 2021 over an August 2019 incident alleging excessive force, unlawful search, and malicious prosecution, according to the Chicago Department of Law. Altogether, taxpayers have spent $160,000 resolving three lawsuits alleging Quadri violated Chicagoans' rights. Stiger himself sued the city along with his mother and brother in December 2021 over the 2019 raid.
Exam-Driven Promotions Under Fire
The pattern reflects a structural issue rather than a series of one-off decisions. Roughly 70% of CPD promotions to sergeant and lieutenant are determined solely by exam scores rather than disciplinary reviews, according to department data cited by the Invisible Institute. A separate analysis published by Injustice Watch in July 2025 found that CPD maintains secret eligibility lists for merit promotions, keeping candidates' disciplinary records shielded from public and oversight scrutiny.
This tension traces back to a 2017 U.S. Department of Justice finding that Chicago officers routinely violated the constitutional rights of Black and Latino Chicagoans, which prompted federal officials to urge CPD to change how it promotes officers to detective, sergeant, or lieutenant. The resulting federal consent decree requires CPD to consider officers' disciplinary histories when weighing promotions and to change how it trains, supervises and disciplines officers generally. Yet six and a half years into that consent decree, CPD had achieved full compliance with only 22% of the mandated reform requirements by mid-2025, according to court monitoring data. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday on whether officers' disciplinary records should factor into promotion decisions.
Mayor Brandon Johnson called in December for CPD to overhaul its promotion policies, criticizing the current framework as outdated. Meanwhile, the financial toll of unresolved misconduct keeps mounting: Chicago taxpayers paid the Mendez family $2.5 million in July 2025 after officers pointed guns at a 9-year-old and his 5-year-old brother during a botched 2017 no-knock raid at the wrong apartment, and a federal jury in February ordered the city to pay the Tate family $5.7 million, with the family's lawyers separately asking the judge to order Chicago to pay $5 million in legal fees. CPD's Bureau of Internal Affairs received more than 5,300 misconduct complaints in 2025, up from 4,000 in 2020, prompting Snelling to announce plans in January to add 25 civilian investigators to help clear the backlog.
In the years since the Stiger raid, CPD has adopted a new policy urging officers to avoid handcuffing or intentionally pointing firearms at children unless reasonably necessary. COPA also concluded that officer Gregory Stranski's belief that Stiger had attempted to pick a lock with a nail clipper was not objectively reasonable, and that officer Jeffrey Riordan, who became a detective in December 2022, was among those involved. Officer Mohammed Ahmed was promoted to sergeant in May 2024. Whether Tuesday's hearing before Judge Pallmeyer will force a structural change to how officers like Quadri rise through the ranks remains an open question.
