Lowell Houser, 57, was charged with one count of first-degree murder, Cook County court records show.
Houser, an officer assigned to the mass transit unit, fatally shot Jose Nieves while off duty on the morning of Jan. 2 in the 2500 block of North Lowell, police previously said.
An “altercation” between the men escalated and the officer shot him several times, police said at the time. Nieves was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where he died later that morning, authorities said.
Nieves’ family has sued over the shooting, alleging that Houser threatened and killed Nieves, without justification.
Houser was arrested by Chicago Police Wednesday and is scheduled to appear in bond court Thursday at noon.
Just a day after the shooting happened, the department stripped Houser of his police powers.
At a news conference held a few hours after the shooting, Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said: “I have a lot more questions than I do answers at this time.”
Johnson told reporters that Houser does not live in the area but knew Nieves from another “confrontation a few weeks ago.
After the shooting, the police department and Independent Police Review Authority opened simultaneous investigations into the shooting.
With Wednesday’s charges, though, IPRA will halt its administrative investigation “until we see how the murder charges play out,” IPRA spokeswoman Mia Sissac said.
“We wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that,” she said.
Sissac added that, during its preliminary investigation, IPRA provided the Cook County state’s attorney’s office with information on the shooting.
Dean Angelo, Jr., president of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, declined to comment on the specifics of Houser’s case.
However, the decision to bring murder charges against an officer, less than a week after the release of the Department of Justice’s scathing report on Chicago Police practices, was bound to have a negative impact on the union’s morale, Angelo said.
“This is another situation that we’re going to be faced with dealing with, and it is another situation that every officer that’s out there right now in a squad car is going to be thinking about,” Angelo said.
Houser is now the second Chicago Police officer to currently face murder charges. Officer Jason Van Dyke is awaiting trial after he allegedly unlawfully shot Laquan McDonald 16 times in October 2014.
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