Joseph Vecchio
Introduction
Joseph Vecchio is a Chicago police officer whom the city’s own oversight apparatus has twice recommended for firing — for filing a police report with false information that helped convict a man, and for giving three false statements under oath in court — and who was arrested on August 21, 2026, less than 24 hours after those recommendations became public, on a felony charge of aggravated domestic battery. He had been the subject of 76 disciplinary investigations by the time the city’s police oversight chief intervened to have his police powers stripped in October 2025. The criminal charge is pending and he is presumed innocent.
Background Information
Vecchio served on the tactical team of the Near North (18th) District, which patrols downtown neighborhoods including the Gold Coast. His disciplinary file is extensive: 24 complaints against him were sustained, with recommended suspensions totaling 236 days, and he has been named in 24 lawsuits alleging a wide range of misconduct, four of which the city settled for a total of $260,000. In 2023 he served a 15-day suspension after the Civilian Office of Police Accountability found him responsible for a domestic-violence incident in which he threatened a woman in April 2020 and threw eggs at her car. LaKenya White, COPA’s chief administrator, wrote in October 2025 that the sheer number of open cases — 76 disciplinary investigations, including accusations of domestic abuse, civil rights violations and false statements about traffic stops involving guns — suggested “the need for immediate intervention by CPD.” He was stripped of his policing powers on October 7, 2025, and assigned to administrative duties.
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
The first case stems from an August 25, 2024 traffic stop near Erie and Dearborn streets, where Vecchio and Officer Crystina Kittrell stopped Lamar Buckner, who is Black, citing a failure to signal and tinted windshield. Their arrest report claimed they ordered Buckner out of the car after seeing “furtive movements” toward the glovebox where a gun was found. Kittrell later told investigators that account was false and that the report was completed by Vecchio without her knowledge. Buckner was charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon and pleaded guilty on his lawyer’s advice in return for probation. Both COPA and then-Superintendent Larry Snelling agreed Vecchio should be fired for the false report.
The second case comes from an October 25, 2024 stop outside a Michigan Avenue Neiman Marcus, where Vecchio and his longtime partner Officer Richard Rodriquez stopped Tavaris Quinn, a passenger in his wife’s BMW, and recovered a gun from the center console. Vecchio testified under oath that he saw Quinn reach into his waistband and remove an L-shaped object — testimony COPA concluded was false, because body-worn camera footage showed Quinn “calmly seated looking at his cell phone” as Vecchio approached. Camera footage also contradicted his account of the search sequence. Police Board member Arlette Porter, resolving the dispute between COPA and Snelling, found the stop and search unjustified and wrote that Vecchio’s “intentional inaccuracies, untruths, and misleading testimony before the Court was egregious and in direct contravention to CPD policy regarding honesty and accountability.” On August 20, 2026, the Police Board announced Vecchio faces dismissal in both cases.
Public Reaction and Consequences
The day after the board’s recommendations became public, prosecutors say, Vecchio attacked a woman described as his girlfriend: punching her in the head, kneeing her in the face and choking her with both hands while preventing her from leaving. She escaped by climbing from a third-floor balcony onto a second-floor balcony, and a neighbor took her to the Jefferson Park District station, where she filed a report. Vecchio surrendered at the Central District station and was charged with felony aggravated domestic battery. Judge Kimberly Przekota ordered him held in Cook County jail pending trial, and the woman obtained an emergency order of protection. Attorney Jordan Marsh, who represents both drivers from the traffic-stop cases, said his clients were “gratified” that officials “acknowledged the threat posed by” Vecchio, adding, “It took a long time, unfortunately, for officials to see through the lies… I’m glad they are off the streets.”
Current Status
Vecchio is held in Cook County jail pending trial on the domestic battery charge, which has not been adjudicated. The dismissal cases remain in procedural limbo: because of a long-running dispute over whether officers accused of serious misconduct can demand an arbitrator rather than the Police Board — a question the Illinois Supreme Court has taken up — Chicago officials cannot fire him right away even with two termination recommendations on file. His defense attorney, Thomas Mahoney, declined to comment on the termination recommendations, and Vecchio did not respond to requests for comment.
Impact on Their Career/Life
Vecchio’s case has become a Chicago emblem of the difficulty of removing an officer with a mountain of sustained complaints: two firing recommendations, an arrest, and a jailing still leave his employment formally unresolved while the arbitration question winds through the state’s highest court. The cost is not abstract — the city has already spent more than $37,000 defending the stop lawsuits and is negotiating a “global settlement” covering both drivers plus 15 other claims against eight members of his tactical team. Whether he ever polices again, his record now documents, in a judge’s findings and a board member’s words, testimony a civilian review found to be false under oath.