A Chicago police officer has been suspended for five days after a civilian oversight review found he unlawfully stopped and searched a student walking home from the bus, then insulted the student and his female companion by calling them ugly. The encounter happened in the Jackson Park neighborhood on Dec. 10, 2024, at about 1:50 p.m., with temperatures in the 30s.
According to NBC News, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability reviewed body-camera footage of the stop and identified Officer Oscar Furlan, who was patrolling the neighborhood in an unmarked Chicago Police Department vehicle at the time. Furlan told the male student he was stopped because he looked like he had something on him, even though the teen said his hands were simply in his pockets because he was cold. Officers patted the student down but found no contraband or weapons, and both the student and his companion said they were only walking home from school after getting off the bus.
The student was briefly detained before officers let the pair go. As they walked away, the same NBC News report notes, Furlan insulted them by telling them they were ugly. COPA determined the male was stopped and searched without justification, finding nothing in his behavior that suggested he was dangerous or presented any danger of attack.
What the Oversight Review Found
COPA's findings, laid out in the agency's final summary report, concluded that Furlan violated Chicago Police Department policies prohibiting officers from disrespecting and insulting members of the public. The report also found that officers failed to properly document the stop, as required. The office initially recommended a 10-day suspension for Furlan, along with retraining on professionalism, investigatory stops, protective pat-downs, and related reporting requirements.
The Chicago Police Department ultimately agreed to a shorter, five-day suspension for Furlan. Per an Aug. 11 letter the department sent COPA, one other officer involved is expected to receive a three-day suspension and a third is expected to be reprimanded; the department also agreed to put the officers through training on investigatory stops, pat-downs, and professionalism, the same letter states. The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to NBC News's request for comment.
That gap between COPA's initial recommendation and the department's final discipline is not unusual. A report from the Chicago Office of Inspector General found that CPD disciplinary recommendations move through a decentralized system of collective bargaining agreements, municipal codes, and consent decree mandates that frequently leads to modified or reduced penalties, with COPA findings reviewed by the police superintendent before any final discipline is imposed.
Rules Meant to Prevent This Kind of Stop
The stop took place under strict guardrails that were supposed to prevent exactly this scenario. Chicago Police Department Special Order S04-13-09 requires officers to document specific, objective facts establishing reasonable articulable suspicion before executing an investigatory stop or pat-down, and it explicitly bars general exploratory searches or reliance on hunches, according to the ACLU of Illinois. Under Chicago's municipal code, COPA's authority includes investigating allegations of improper search and seizure and bias-based verbal abuse by CPD personnel.
The Jackson Park stop also fell under active federal judicial oversight. In June 2023, a federal court approved an amended stipulation folding strict investigatory stop and protective pat-down rules — spanning paragraphs 800 through 877 — into the binding Chicago Police Department consent decree, which itself grew out of a 2017 state enforcement lawsuit. That framework grew out of an earlier agreement concerning investigatory stops and protective pat-downs.
A Pattern Independent Monitors Keep Flagging
A Pattern Independent Monitors Keep Flagging Despite those layers of policy, oversight groups continue to document gaps in how stops are supervised in the field. In April 2025, CPD agreed to revise its draft field stop directives to explicitly ban stopping or searching people based on race or ethnicity, following formal objections from consent decree reform groups, as reported by WTTW News.
Investigatory-stop reporting requirements are also discussed in academic research. Academic research published in September 2023 and covering CPD data from 2015 through 2022 found that after strict pedestrian stop reporting requirements took hold, documented street stops dropped sharply while officer traffic stops rose significantly, according to a study published via PMC/NIH.
Consequences Beyond the Suspension
The sustained COPA finding was accompanied by a five-day suspension.
The Furlan case documents an unjustified stop and a failure to properly document it.
