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In a highly unusual move, the Chicago Police Board has overruled police Supt. Garry McCarthy and fired a police sergeant whose gun was used in the shooting death of a Northwest Side woman five years ago.
McCarthy had recommended suspending Sgt. Steven Lesner for 60 days. But on Thursday night, the board unanimously voted to fire Lesner for the 2009 incident in which he bought liquor for a woman he’d just met while on duty and for failing to secure his weapon when he went to her Northwest Side apartment after his shift had ended.
The woman, Catherine Weiland, shot herself with Lesner’s gun while Lesner was in her bathroom, according to police.
McCarthy had recommended the 60-day punishment following a Chicago Sun-Times report last August that Lesner met the intoxicated woman while on duty, bought her wine and drove her home.
After his shift ended, Lesner returned to Weiland’s home, where she died of a gunshot from his weapon about 1:40 a.m. on Feb. 18, 2009. Lesner told investigators he was in her bathroom and had left his gun out. The police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office ruled that Weiland, 47, committed suicide by shooting herself in the head while sitting on a love seat in her living room.
Authorities found that a bullet from Lesner’s gun entered Weiland’s right temple. The only gunshot residue found was on Weiland’s left hand. Lesner washed his hands before evidence technicians checked his hands for gunshot residue, according to police reports.
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