Judge in 2010 Chicago cop killing frustrated by defense 'song and dance'
No trial date has been set for Bryant Brewer, now 28, who is accused of grabbing Chicago police Officer Thor Soderberg's gun and fatally shooting him outside an Englewood police deployment center.
"This case is 4 years old," Judge Stanley Sacks told Assistant Public Defender William Wolf, a member of that office's homicide task force. "Four years is not enough time for you?"
Wolf said outside court that attorney ethics rules constrained him from responding to the judge's remarks, but he noted that he has been involved in three murder trials in the last month.
The judge's comments came at the end of a hearing on whether Brewer was able to understand the Miranda warnings given to him by detectives before he was questioned inside an ambulance after the shooting.
Brewer, whose mental health has long been at issue in the case and who made popping sounds with his mouth during Tuesday's hearing, was shot in the chest by other police officers responding to the gunfire.
A forensic psychologist testified Tuesday that toxicology tests showed that Brewer had marijuana, PCP and opiates in his system at the time of the shooting.
According to a filing by prosecutors, Brewer told detectives he got into a fistfight with Soderberg, and the officer hit him in the head with his gun. During the struggle, Soderberg's 9 mm handgun fell to the ground, and Brewer picked it up and shot the officer, he said.
Prosecutors have said Soderberg, an 11-year police veteran, had just ended his shift with a targeted response unit and had walked out to his car in a parking lot at the deployment center near 61st Street and Racine Avenue. The 43-year-old triathlete was about to change his clothes for a volleyball game when Brewer got into an altercation with the uniformed officer, grabbed his gun and shot him in the back, face and the top of his head, prosecutors said.
Brewer continued shooting the officer's gun, firing at a maintenance man across the street, prosecutors said. He also shot at a uniformed female Chicago officer who he chased around a car parked in front of the police building, according to the filing.
Bullets were found inside two nearby apartment buildings, according to court filings.
Sacks has previously ruled that Brewer is fit to stand trial. Brewer's attorneys and their experts contend he is schizophrenic, but a prosecution expert testified Tuesday that Brewer has an anti-social personality disorder.
Dr. Christofer Cooper, a forensic psychologist who testified Tuesday for prosecutors, told the judge that he believed Brewer was able to understand the Miranda rights given to him. He said Brewer recalled being given the warnings and was able to explain what they meant during an evaluation Cooper conducted in September.
Cooper, who previously found Brewer fit to stand trial, acknowledged during cross-examination that a report from an emergency medical technician who treated Brewer noted that he was "flailing, spitting and could not be treated," and had to be strapped to a gurney while being taken to a hospital.
He also testified that Brewer made the same popping sounds with his mouth during the evaluation, at first telling Cooper he was "trying to pop a filling back in" and later that "I think it's a bubble in my head."
Sacks said he would issue a ruling after reviewing transcripts from the hearings.
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