When then Area 2 Detectives Commander Rodney Blisset told Isaac Lambert that Lambert was losing his job as a detective sergeant and sent to work in patrol, he couldn’t give Lambert a reason for the demotion. More than a year later, when a city attorney suggested Blisset’s boss wanted Lambert moved because he was a problem officer, Blisset was outraged, the retired commander testified Tuesday in Lambert’s whistleblower trial.
Lambert has sued the city and the Chicago Police Department, alleging he was dropped from his job as a detective because he pushed back when supervisors tried to get him to alter reports on a fellow officer’s 2017 off-duty shooting of an unarmed teenager.
On the stand Tuesday, Blisset recalled a 2019 conversation with city attorneys after Lambert filed his lawsuit, when Blisset was asked several times about Lambert. Blisset’s boss, former CPD Chief of Detectives Melissa Staples, had told city lawyers that Blisset had complained about Lambert.
“I said, ‘The chief is a damn liar,’” Blisset said. “I never had a conversation with the chief about Ike’s performance or anything else,” Blisset said, taking a long pause.
“I said, ‘You all needed to get that s—- straight before you go to court, because I’m not lying for nobody.’”
Tuesday opened the second week of testimony in Lambert’s case. The veteran detective was supervising detectives the night Sgt. Khalid Muhammad shot Ricardo Hayes in the early morning hours of Aug. 13, 2017, after Muhammad saw the teen,...
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