BY PETER NICKEAS, CASEYTONER AND TOM SCHUBA

Chicago police fought to keep secret details of its probe into a handgun that was taken from a room full of cops and later used in three shootings. In the end, no one was charged and no officers were disciplined.

When a valuable Glock handgun was stolen from inside a South Side police station, the Chicago Police Department did little to investigate, not even interviewing most of the officers who were there.

That was even after the gun had been used in a series of shootings and then was found near a teenage boy who was caught trying to break into a car, according to police records obtained by the Illinois Answers Project and Chicago Sun-Times.

And it also was after a police supervisor told investigators he thought he knew what happened — that another cop had taken it.

Instead, investigators closed the case without figuring out who stole the gun, which had been turned in to the police and was supposed to have been destroyed.

After reporters asked how a gun could have been stolen from a police station full of cops, the department said it was reopening its investigation.

But, even then, investigators didn't interview a single additional officer who was there when the weapon was swiped from the Gresham District station in December 2023.

And the police department fought to keep all of this secret, refusing to release records of the case that reporters sought under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act — doing so only after the publisher of the Illinois Answers Project took the city to court.

In the end, no one was charged or disciplined.

Superintendent's promise

The gun was stolen from a room that tactical team officers were using to inventory about 300 guns collected from a gun buyback event at St. Sabina Church in Auburn Gresham. A cop noticed that one of the guns — a ,45-caliber Glock 21 — had gone missing, its inventory tag switched to another weapon.

Before the Glock was recovered nearly a year later, it had been tied to three shootings since the theft, including one in which a woman was wounded. Police found the gun after chasing a 16-year-old who had been caught pulling on car door handles in November 2024.

The police department's Bureau of Internal Affairs closed the initial investigation even before the gun was found.

When the case was reopened, investigators spoke to the two officers who arrested the boy found with the gun, but they said they remembered little about it.

Investigators tried but failed to interview the boy and attempted to find any social media connections between the teenager and Chicago police officers but came away with nothing. The second inquiry was closed after about five months, again without anyone charged.

The only officer initially disciplined in the case was a sergeant, Robert Brown, who approved the gun inventories. He was handed a one-day suspension. But that disciplinary action was reduced on appeal to a "violation noted" due to his "stellar" 23-year history with the department. Brown won't comment.

For more than a year, the police department has refused to answer questions about its investigations into the theft of the gun, the shootings tied to it or any of the officers named in records related to the case.

One of the cops who was interviewed as a witness in the case was Officer Krystal Rivera, who subsequently was shot and killed last summer by her partner, Carlos Baker, as they chased a suspect into an apartment building in what the police have said was an accidental shooting. Records show Rivera took steps to try to find the gun the day it was stolen. She wasn't accused of any wrongdoing.

Asked a year ago about the stolen gun, Police Supt. Larry Snelling downplayed the theft, saying: "When you look at the number of guns that have been turned in, this is one case that is under investigation at this point. Once we get to the bottom of the investigation, if there's anything nefarious that we find, we'll take action."

Who's in charge?

The police also haven't charged anyone in the shootings tied to the stolen gun.

In August 2024, a woman delivering food with her boyfriend was shot as they were parked near her Auburn Gresham home.

The following month, a 44-year-old woman and her 26-year-old son were fired upon as they saw a car burglary outside their South Shore apartment.

In October of that year, a woman's car was stolen in Auburn Gresham, and eight days later she found it abandoned, damaged with gunshots, with shell casings inside that matched the stolen gun.

By the time officers recovered the Glock in November 2024, the initial investigation into its theft had been closed without internal affairs having interviewed anyone besides Brown. He told them he wasn't even in charge, but internal affairs disputed that.

Then-Cmdr. Michael Tate, who was responsible for running the Gresham District and appointing its tactical officers, wasn't interviewed by internal affairs. He since has been promoted to deputy chief of the police department. He declined to comment.

Police reopened the internal investigation four months after the gun had been recovered and after discovering that it had been used in the shootings.

That was a year after Brown reported that he thought someone from the Gresham District's 663 tactical team stole the gun.

"Why do you say the 663 team?" he was asked by Sgt. Hector Marino, the sole internal affairs investigator on the case, records show.

"Because they were in charge of these weapons, and they were responsible for inventorying them. And obviously some of them knew of this weapon as well," Brown said, according to a transcript of the interview.

First investigation

On Dec. 2, 2023, the day the Glock vanished, Brown was working essentially three jobs.

From inside the Gresham District tactical team office, he was working overtime, monitoring radio traffic for a tactical team that was on call for a Gaza war protest downtown.

He also was helping a separate tactical team inventory the hundreds of guns from the church buyback.

Those tasks were on top of his normal assignment, supervising a team that started at 6 p.m.

Records show the 663 team overseeing the bulk of the buyback duties didn't have an assigned supervisor.

"No one in the ... [Gresham] District, no matter what rank they are, gave me any instructions regarding this weapon turn-in," Brown said, according to a transcript of his internal affairs interview. "No supervisor at any time, that's over-ranked me, gave me any instructions on covering the 663 team, being their direct supervisor or approving or being told directly 'approve their inventories.'"

"Yet you approved all 300 inventories," Marino said, referring to the number of guns that had been turned in. "Why would you do that?"

"To help out because I was there. Not assigned. Because I was there," Brown said.

He disputed the account of one of the police officers, Travis Betts, who told investigators that Brown told them to speed up the inventory process.

"I probably [told them] that they need to focus on what they're doing," Brown said, adding that the officers were talking about "irrelevant stuff."

"I don't remember telling them to speed it up because... 300 weapons is not going to be done in two minutes," he said.

Brown said that, when he learned the gun was stolen, he informed two lieutenants who were in the station that day, Don Hoard and Ryan Doherty. Neither was interviewed by investigators.

In a separate interview with investigators, Betts said that other officers were admiring the Glock, a weapon commonly used in street violence, before it was stolen.

"Ah, yeah, it's a nice one," Betts said

The two officers on the gun's paperwork told investigators they didn't know how their names got there and that they hadn't filled out the forms.

Rivera, the officer who was fatally shot by her partner last summer, told Marino she looked in other officers' bookbags once she realized the gun was missing. The police department has called Rivera's shooting unintentional but hasn't answered questions about the case.

While inventorying the guns, Rivera had said she prepared a report listing every gun that was recovered — a report that investigators said they couldn't find.

Brown said the "computer system was messed up" and had trouble printing, possibly resulting in the report not being found.

Asked about a "security gap" that led to someone stealing the gun, Brown said the tactical team door was open because "people were coming in and out when they were going to the bathroom or whatever."

Brown also said a janitor came into the room while the guns were being inventoried and emptied the garbage. But he said he "didn't observe her even show any interest in these weapons."

It's not clear from the case file whether internal affairs investigators ever established that a janitor was working and, if so, who it was.

Second investigation, same result

By the time a memo about the stolen Glock reached then-Internal Affairs Chief Yolanda Talley in September 2024, the gun had been used at least twice and was still out on the streets.

Just after Thanksgiving in 2024, police arrested the teenage boy they said was seen checking car doors in South Shore. The boy ran when officers confronted him and ditched the gun, but officers found it a short time later.

When police checked the gun's serial number, they realized it had been stolen from a neighboring district's police station a year earlier. When they test-fired the gun and compared its shell casings against brass recovered at shooting scenes across the city, they discovered that it was tied to at least three other crimes since being stolen.

Records show top department officials knew for months that the gun had been used in the shootings before they decided to reopen the investigation into its theft.

In late February 2025 and again in late March, Illinois Answers Project and Sun-Times reporters sent questions to the police department about the gun and its disappearance.

Days later, the police reopened the internal investigation. Department officials later said it's "inexcusable" that a gun had gone missing from police custody. Talley, who was chief of internal affairs at the time of the theft and during the initial investigation, had been promoted to first deputy superintendent. She retired last fall and didn't respond to a request for comment.

After reopening the case, internal affairs didn't reinterview anyone questioned in its initial investigation nor did they interview anyone else from the Gresham District.

When Brown's union argued successfully for lesser discipline, it said Marino "did not conduct a thorough investigation" because he didn't interview all the officers or review security camera footage. Marino couldn't be reached for comment.

During the second inquiry, the records show Marino tried to call the mother of the boy who was arrested with the gun. The boy was in custody on unrelated charges.

The records don't show any attempt to contact the family in person.

Reporters had spoken with the boy and his mother at their home.

The boy's mother told Marino she wasn't sure how the boy obtained the gun, and Marino asked her to call back if her son wished to cooperate. It doesn't appear she called back.

Marino called a detective assigned to one of the three cases tied to the shootings and told the detective the gun had been recovered. The detective told Marino his shooting investigation was suspended but called the teenager's mother, who told him he couldn't talk to the boy unless she was there.

The mother asked the detective: "Is this about that gun that was supposed to be in police custody?"

A LENGTHY INVESTIGATION ULTIMATELY GOES NOWHERE

Dec. 2,2023: A ,45-caliber Glock 21 handgun is stolen from a room full of cops at the Gresham District station after being turned in at a buyback event. The Bureau of Internal Affairs subsequently opens an investigation.

Aug. 14,2024: The stolen gun is used in a shooting that leaves Twanda Willingham wounded near her Auburn Gresham home.

Sept. 19,2024: The gun is used in another shooting in South Shore that targeted Andre Williams and his mother, Crystal Reynolds, who weren't struck by the gunfire.

Sept. 26,2024: The investigation into the stolen gun is closed.

Oct. 13,2024: A car stolen from Auburn Gresham is recovered with shell casings inside that matched the stolen gun.

Nov. 30,2024: The gun is recovered during the arrest of a 16-year-old boy in South Shore.

Dec. 11,2024: A sergeant informs internal affairs that the stolen gun had been recovered and was used in the shootings

Feb. 21,2025: Reporters from the Chicago Sun-Times and Illinois Answers Project ask the Chicago Police Department about the gun's theft and the arrest of the teenage boy. March 27,2025: Reporters send the police department a second inquiry about the theft and the arrest.

April 1,2025: The investigation into the gun's theft is reopened.

June 5,2025: Officer Krystal Rivera, who helped inventory the buyback weapons and searched for the stolen Glock, is shot and killed by her partner during a foot chase in Chatham.

Sept. 9,2025: The investigation into the gun's theft is closed for a second time.

Peter Nickeas and Casey Toner are reporters for the Illinois Answers Project. Tom Schuba is a Sun-Times staff reporter. 

A LENGTHY INVESTIGATION ULTIMATELY GOES NOWHERE Dec. 2,2023: A ,45-caliber Glock 21 handgun is stolen from a room full of cops at the Gresham District station after being turned in at a buyback event. The Bureau of Internal Affairs subsequently opens an investigation. Aug. 14,2024: The stolen gun is used in a shooting that leaves Twanda Willingham wounded near her Auburn Gresham home. Sept. 19,2024: The gun is used in another shooting in South Shore that targeted Andre Williams and his mother, Crystal Reynolds, who weren't struck by the gunfire. Sept. 26,2024: The investigation into the stolen gun is closed. Oct. 13,2024: A car stolen from Auburn Gresham is recovered with shell casings inside that matched the stolen gun. Nov. 30,2024: The gun is recovered during the arrest of a 16-year-old boy in South Shore. The Sun-Times' Dec. 11,2024: front page on A sergeant April 6,2025. CPD Officer Krystal Rivera informs internal affairs that the stolen gun had been recovered and was used in the shootings. Feb. 21,2025: Reporters from the Chicago Sun-Times and Illinois Answers Project ask the Chicago Police Department about the gun's theft and the arrest of the teenage boy. March 27,2025: Reporters send the police department a second inquiry about the theft and the arrest. April 1,2025: The investigation into the gun's theft is reopened. June 5,2025: Officer Krystal Rivera, who helped inventory the buyback weapons and searched for the stolen Glock, is shot and killed by her partner during a foot chase in Chatham. Sept. 9,2025: The investigation into the gun's theft is closed for a second time.