A Chicago transit cop has been charged with the first degree murder of Jose Nieves. Nieves was unarmed and gunned down by off-duty officer Lowell Houser. Houser and Nieves knew each other, and had been in a number of verbal altercations in the months leading up to the incident. The fight, which broke out between the two, happened in early January 2016. After a year of investigation, the new District Attorney found sufficient probable cause to file first degree murder charges.
The charges were filed on Wednesday by the Cook County District Attorney. Little information has made it to the public regarding the specifics of the incident, other than the fact that Nieves was killed and was unarmed at the time. Immediately after the shooting, the police released as little information as possible. They did however, admit that the only weapon recovered, did in fact belong to Houser. “These two individuals knew each other from a confrontation a few weeks ago,” stated the Superintendent of Police, Eddie Johnson.
According to Nieves’ family, Houser was a neighborhood bully who had previously flashed his gun during an incident involving several neighbors. “He would complain about the guy pulling out his gun at him, him coming home from work. More than once he’s called 911. They’ve gone to his apartment. They’ve gone there. They don’t do nothing about it. He’s an officer,” Angelica Nieves, Jose’s sister, told the press. “You got him in the stomach, on the lower body, and the back. So he was turned around when he got him in the back. That’s the bullet that killed him.”
Houser has been investigated internally by the Chicago PD twenty times, yet had never suffered any serious discipline. Records had shown that he had previously been in trouble for an off-duty incident of domestic violence in 1994, resulting in a five day suspension. An incident of domestic violence that resulted in a suspension rather than an arrest, reeks of cover-up. Houser is not linked to any shootings or lawsuits.
Houser has been allowed to catch a pay check for the last year, despite having been stripped of his police powers. The Superintendent has stated that he will now begin the termination process. Having an officer involved in the killing of an unarmed citizen, especially one who was shot in the back, should have resulted in instant termination, however, the thin blue line runs deep in Chicago. “I have a lot more questions than I do answers at this time. So I came out because I wanted to make sure this investigation was done properly.”
The charges come after a wave of incidents of police violence and a Department of Justice report that told us what we already knew: that the Chicago Police are a bunch of racist murderers. The DA responsible for the Laquan McDonald cover-up was voted out and replaced by Kim Foxx. Foxx is stepping into a position wrought with controversy already for the repeated cover-ups of police murder and excessive force throughout Chicago. Hopefully the prosecution of Houser is an indication that she will genuinely hold police in Chicago accountable.
Sources: Chicago Tribune, ABC7 Chicago.
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