14 Chicago Police Officers Sued For Robbing and Kidnapping

ABC TV Chicago reports:

A man is talking about a lawsuit he has filed against the Chicago Police Department and 14 of its officers. Vance Estes says the officers broke into his home, robbed him and his girlfriend of money, and filed false charges against him. Estes spent several months in jail before the case was dismissed.


Vance Estes is one of several victims in an alleged robbery ring that involved Chicago Police officers from the special operations section, known as SOS. In his lawsuit, Estes spells out exactly what happened to him the night of January 6, 2006, when he was stopped by an unmarked police car.

He says he was kidnapped, burglarized and then thrown in jail for eight months. Vance Estes had never felt so powerless. The 23-year-old says his fear of police began the night he was stopped by several Chicago Police officers on 91st Street near Wentworth. Estes says he was just walking to the store.

"So I'm walking down the street and I was minding my own business. The police come up out of nowhere, right up on me, get out of the car," said Vance Estes, plaintiff.

Estes says the officers kept asking him if he had drugs and guns.

"I told them no. They basically put me in the back of the car, looked at ID. I told them where I stayed at, so they rode around to my house," said Estes.

The cops, who were part of the special operation section, allegedly broke into Estes home, detained his pregnant girlfriend and proceeded to steal close to $1,000.

Estes says he was taken into custody and charged with several crimes, including possession of drugs and guns.

"I was hysterical. I was asking questions, they would not answer any of them," Estes said.

Estes spent almost eight months in jail for a crime he never committed. His case was dropped after the officers involved were charged with being part of a robbery ring that victimized several innocent people for close to four years.

The alleged ringleader was Jerome Finnigan.

"What these guys on the SOS unit have done is no different than what mobsters do, it's no different than what gangs do. What they have done is even worse than that because they are in a position of trust and authority," said Ed Fox, Estes' attorney.

With the help of attorney Ed Fox, Estes and his girlfriend are filing a lawsuit against several individual officers and the City of Chicago.

"I surely don't want anything like this to happen to anyone else, because I surely went through pure hell," said Estes.

While a monetary award is all you can get from a civil suit, Estes says it is impossible to put a dollar amount on his freedom that was taken away from him.

Six of the officers named in Estes' suit have been criminally charged with offenses ranging from home invasion to official misconduct. The US attorney's office is also conducting its own investigation.

Gun control works for corrupt police officers who have a monopoly on gun ownership in Chicago.