The hits keep on comin’.

An officer the Chicago Police Department tried to fire for punching an elderly man in the face after a fender-bender is now accused of doing nothing while fellow cops beat up bar patrons in January.

On Thursday, the four patrons filed a lawsuit in federal court saying they were beaten by at least five cops early Jan. 7 outside Carol’s Pub at Clark and Leland on the North Side.

The defendants include Detective John Sebeck, who was suspended for nine months in 2000 after the Police Board rejected then-Supt. Terry Hillard’s request to fire him for beating a 72-year-old man who rear-ended his car while Sebeck was off-duty.

The four men (none of whom had a prior record, three of whom have college degrees) were arrested, and charged with crimes that included felonies. Police claim they were fighting each other, then resisted when the police attempted to break them up. They plead to misdemeanor disorderly conduct. Believe whom you will.

TFA includes bonus gory cell phone photo goodness.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 28th, 2007 at 5:50 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Professionalism, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.