A Cook County jury on Tuesday awarded nearly $1 million to a Chicago police detective who alleged he was demoted after pushing back when superiors pressed him to alter reports to cover for a fellow officer who shot an unarmed teenager.
Sgt. Isaac Lambert, who took the stand during the first week of the three-week trial, claimed he was “dumped” from his job as a detective supervisor on the South Side after he filed reports on the case nearly two years after off-duty Sgt. Khalil Muhammad shot and wounded 18-year-old Ricardo Hayes.
Seated in the courtroom across from jurors, Lambert bowed his head and whispered to his lawyers as Judge Thomas Donnelly read the jury’s verdict.
Jurors needed only about two and half hours to reach a verdict. The award of $910,000 was less than the $1.2 million to $2.5 million that Lambert’s lawyers had suggested, but well above the $143,000 in compensation city attorneys had called for.
“Your honor, thank you very much for letting me have my day,” Lambert said to Donnelly as the judge stepped down from the bench.
During more than two weeks of testimony at the Daley Center, jurors heard from Lambert himself and a parade of Chicago Police Department brass recounting the night Hayes was shot and the reasons it took more than two years for the department to approve final reports on the shooting.
Lambert alleged he was “dumped” from his job as a detective supervisor for refusing to say that Hayes, an autistic teen who had been reported missing by his...
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