A veteran cop in Chicago has been the subject of 82 misconduct complaints and cost taxpayers millions of dollars throughout his career.
Lt. Andrew Dakuras, 55, served in the force for 29 years before being stripped of his police powers in July. Since then a long history of alleged wrongdoing has come to light. How he was able to stay in the force for so long remains a mystery.
Dakuras has won awards throughout his two decades as an officer, including for helping to rescue a woman from an abusive relationship, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
But there is a dark side to Dakuras’s service. He has been named as the defendant in at least five misconduct lawsuits in his two decades as an officer.
While it is no secret that cops can be the target of fraudulent claims, Dakuras carries more misconduct complaints than 99 percent of all Chicago police officers.
The settlement of suits filed against the lieutenant has cost Chicago taxpayers $10.5 million. And that amount is only expected to rise.
The City Council Finance Committee was set to vote on a further settlement (worth $332,500) in yet another misconduct lawsuit against Dakuras on Wednesday.
Jeanette Bass, a former Gold Coast resident, filed a lawsuit claiming that Dakuras physically and emotionally abused her before admitting her, involuntarily, to a psychiatric ward in 2019.
‘This guy should not be a police officer,’ George Kulis, Bass’s former attorney, told the Chicago Sun Times.
In June of 2019, Bass had accused her condo’s management company of entering her apartment while she was naked without seeking consent.
She called up the Chicago Police Department after reading a copy of the report which she felt was inaccurately written.
But it all went south after Dakuras was dispatched to her home where he concluded that she was emotionally ‘fragile’ and ‘decided he could play with her mind’, Kulis told the Chicago Sun Times.
Bass asked him to leave after claiming that he provided no help in changing the report.
Instead, he stood his ground and repeatedly asked Bass if she was in distress.
Dakuras then followed her out of her apartment and down the stairs, all before roughly grabbing her hand and taking her to the ground.
‘I need a wagon,’ he said while on the phone with police.
He then suggested she be sent to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for psychiatric evaluation where she was held for a few days before her release.
‘He played with her mind. And he kept saying, “Jeanette, are you in distress? Do you need a doctor?” The way this guy was egging her on,’ Kulis told the Chicago Sun Times.
‘He recognized the weakness that she had psychologically. He saw that she was kind of fragile. And he played with her. It was just cruel. He was so sarcastic. So arrogant.’
It was only three months ago that Dakuras’s police powers were finally stripped after the circulation of a viral video on social media in which he allegedly uses a racial slur while at a bar in Chicago.
In the three clips that were posted to the internet, Dakuras appears to be looking down the length of a bar, apparently angry at another man standing just feet away.
Then he begins angrily screaming insults and aggressively pointing in the face of a man standing in front of him.
‘You’re fucking nobody, n****,’ he can be heard saying.
Just three years ago, when Dakuras was a sergeant, a federal jury found that he used excessive force outside of Wrigley Field, allegedly beating a Cubs fan after the team won the 2016 World Series.
Dakuras kicked and slammed the man’s head against the pavement during the celebration.
He was charged with resisting arrest battery and drinking in a public way. In 2017 a judge found him guilty of a misdemeanor count of resisting arrest but found him not guilty on the battery and drinking in the public way counts, the Daily Mail reported.
The city was ordered by the jury to pay the victim $35,000 along with Dakuras personally coughing up an additional $18,000, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
Trust in the Chicago Police Department remains low for a slew of reasons, many of which stem from officers abusing their power time and time again.
Fifty-nine per cent of low-income residents reported that they knew someone that has been treated unfairly by officers, a 2019 Gallup and Center for Advancing Opportunity report stated.
Fear, lack of community policing and over-enforcement have been some other concerns among residents.
The city has spent $51.5 million in total to resolve lawsuits against officers in 2022, WTTW News reported.
Kulis considered the same question fellow cops and Chicago residents have been asking since Dakuras first appeared in the limelight: how was a 29-year veteran cop with such a questionable record ever promoted to lieutenant, let alone able to keep his position?
Neither the Law Department nor the Chicago Police Department would comment on Bass’s settlement, which is currently pending, the Chicago Sun Times reported.