A Chicago police officer who shoved a woman into her kitchen cabinets and a microwave after she called 911 to report her boyfriend was beating her will not lose his job, despite a city watchdog agency's recommendation that he be fired. Officer Brian Purtell instead faces a 180-day suspension for his conduct during the September 5, 2020 domestic violence call, while his partner faces a lesser penalty.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability had urged former Chicago police superintendent Larry Snelling to fire Purtell, according to WTTW News. Snelling agreed that Purtell's use of force violated CPD policy but determined it was reasonable and necessary, just not proportional, and settled on a significant suspension and additional training as the proper penalty instead of termination, per the same report. COPA leaders ultimately accepted that determination. Purtell's partner, Robert Strycker, faces a 15-day suspension, a lighter penalty than the 30-day suspension COPA had recommended for him, according to a final summary report from COPA.
Body Camera Footage Showed the Shove
The incident began when the woman telephoned 911 and reported that her boyfriend kept hitting her, according to COPA's report. Body-worn camera footage captured Purtell turning back to shove the woman rather than de-escalating the situation or simply moving away from her, per WTTW's reporting on the case. COPA found that Purtell shoved her hard enough that she hit her head on the corner of an upper kitchen cabinet and was forced into a microwave sitting on the counter, breaking the appliance, the agency's report states.
The woman told investigators she briefly lost consciousness and later had a headache, the station reported. She showed officers bruises, ripped shorts and a damaged door as evidence that she had been beaten and suffocated, according to the same report. Her boyfriend, who weighed more than 100 pounds more than she did, told the officers that she had hit him. He was not arrested. The woman was taken to a nearby hospital, then released and arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor battery; those charges were dismissed three months later, on December 8, 2020, according to COPA's findings.
Six Minutes, Then a Dismissive Response
COPA's report describes the entirety of the officers' investigation — including their initial response, preliminary investigation and conclusion — as lasting just over six minutes. The agency concluded that Purtell and Strycker failed to follow CPD policy and state law requiring them to determine the predominant aggressor and arrest that person, instead taking self-serving statements at face value. “They re-victimized her by almost instantly taking self-serving statements as true,” the report states.
Purtell told the woman he would report that both had battered each other and indicated he wanted to leave because his shift had ended, the station's report notes. When she asked for a sergeant, Purtell responded, “Go right ahead. I don't give a s---.” COPA also found that he asked the woman's boyfriend why he was with a “crazy-ass woman,” a comment the agency determined, along with Purtell's repeated yelling at the woman, to be exceedingly disrespectful and unprofessional.
A Four-Year Wait for Accountability
Purtell, a 13-year CPD veteran who earns $115,158 annually according to a city database cited by the station, was not interviewed by COPA until 2023 — three years after the incident. The investigation took more than four years to complete, and its findings were not shared publicly until nearly two years after that completion. Snelling criticized the lengthy delay in finishing the probe, per the same account, even as he disagreed with COPA's apparent suggestion that it was unclear whether the woman had initiated contact with Purtell. Purtell is currently assigned to patrol the South Chicago (4th) Police District, according to a CPD spokesperson cited by the station. Neither the woman nor her boyfriend was named in COPA's report.
A Pattern Across Cook County
The outcome fits a broader pattern documented by South Side Weekly, which found that at least 38 law enforcement officers in Cook County were charged with domestic battery between 2011 and 2023, and only two were convicted. At least 31 of those cases were dropped or dismissed, three ended in not-guilty verdicts, and two remained active, the outlet reported. Twenty-four of the Chicago police officers charged with domestic battery remain CPD employees, and six are currently assigned to beats patrolling city streets, per the same investigation.
COPA investigated 399 CPD officers for domestic violence allegations between 2017 and June 2023 and sustained allegations against just 26 of them, South Side Weekly found — a 6.5 percent discipline-recommendation rate, compared with 8 percent under the agency's predecessors between 2000 and 2017. The outlet also cited a 2018 U.S. Department of Justice study finding that prosecutors in state courts secure convictions for misdemeanor domestic violence offenses in fewer than one-quarter of cases. Other recent WTTW reporting has described mixed outcomes for CPD officers accused of domestic violence-related conduct, including one case in which the Police Board recommended firing an officer arrested for domestic battery and another in which the department moved to fire an officer who kicked down his girlfriend's door and used racial slurs while drunk, despite a COPA recommendation for a shorter suspension.
