In 2019, Chicago police pulled guns off the street at a rate of more than one an hour, and announced that the first arrest of the year took place just minutes into New Year’s Day.
But a departmental investigation found it wasn’t the first of the 4,095 gun arrests by CPD officers last year. The charges were dropped. And the only punishment handed out went to the CPD officers who filed the arrest report.
A police report said that Darrell Rhyme was arrested after allegedly fleeing from a traffic stop in West Woodlawn, and that he was taken into custody at 12:01 a.m. Jan. 1, 2019. A CPD database logged it at 12:02 a.m. — the timestamp CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi used when tweeting about the 9-millimeter pistol that was found in a double-parked Cadillac Rhyme had allegedly bolted from.
That New Year’s Day, CPD issued a press with Rhyme’s mugshot, naming him the first gun arrest of the year — duly reported by the Chicago Sun-Times and local and national media outlets. Guglielmi’s tweet included Rhyme’s photo, a picture of the gun, and a line about Rhyme being “already back on the street” following a gun arrest in June.
Two weeks later, the charges were dropped, and after a four-month long investigation, arresting Officers Matthew Sieber and Alejandro Ballesteros, and Sgt. Anton White, who signed off on the report, were given three-day suspensions for falsifying the time and day of Rhyme’s arrest.
Logs for the arresting officers’ body cameras showed Rhyme was handcuffed 30 minutes to midnight on Dec. 31. So, instead of being the first gun arrest of 2019, Rhyme had been one of the last of 2018. Still on bond for his June arrest, Rhyme walked out of jail Feb. 15.
“After reviewing related body worn camera videos related to the events [investigators] observed discrepancies between the apparent time of arrest and the time documented on reports,” an initial report from internal affairs read.
Guglielmi said the department announced Rhyme as the first arrest based on the time listed on the police report. Reports go through layers of approval, but it was not clear what made Internal Affairs check the report against the video.
“I don’t know how Internal Affairs became aware of [the time discrepancy] but it’s another example of CPD’s commitment to policing ourselves,” Guglielmi said in an email.
As a repeat offender, and one on bond for an open gun case at the time of his arrest, Rhyme fit the bill for the type of offender former CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson and department brass frequently complained were the perpetrators of the majority of Chicago’s violent crimes.
Rhyme himself summarized the philosophy of a repeat gun offender during a 2016 arrest in Woodlawn when police found a gun on the floorboards of a car he was riding in, according to a police report.
“I had that gun for protection,” Rhyme allegedly told officers.
“I rather get caught with a gun than not have one. Live and die in Chicago.”
Even with the bogus time listed for Rhyme’s arrest, the first gun offender of 2019 actually appears to have been 34-year-old Kevin Richardson, whom a department database lists as having been taken into custody at 12:01 a.m.
In an arrest that received no press attention, Area North Gang Team officers chased down Richardson after spotting him in an East Garfield Park alley, firing a 9-millimeter pistol into the air.
But unlike Rhyme, the beefy, bespectacled truck driver had no prior arrests or weapon convictions, and appeared to have spent most of the last few years living in St. Louis. Richardson pleaded guilty to reckless discharge of a firearm in November and was sentenced to a year in prison.
Rhyme also rang in 2020 behind bars.
Though his 2019 gun charges were dropped, he still faced trial for his 2018 gun arrest. On Dec. 23, 2019, he returned to court for a bench trial before Cook County Judge Carol Howard.
In that case, officers patrolling West Woodlawn said they pulled over a car Rhyme was riding in after it rolled through a stop sign at 64th and South Rhodes. The officers noted multiple “furtive” motions by Rhyme and the driver. The officers later testified they saw Rhyme making a move toward where a Glock 9-millimeter was found.
The driver sped off, and after a short police chase, the car was pulled over again a few blocks away. Rhyme bolted from the car, leaving behind a gun — which was missing its magazine, and $3,000 in cash, prosecutors said. As he was being cuffed, Rhyme asked the officers, “Did you find the magazine to the gun?” When the officers didn’t reply, Rhyme quipped, “Yeah, I know. Because you ain’t that slick.”
As Howard prepared to rule, things seemed to be going Rhyme’s way — thanks, again, to evidence from the arresting officers’ body cameras. Howard had chastised the officers, warning that their testimony about the “furtive movements” had not been backed up by the bodycams.
But after that promising preamble, Howard found Rhyme guilty of two counts of possession of a firearm by a felon. Howard announced she was revoking Rhyme’s bond ahead of sentencing. Rhyme, stunned, looked at his parents in the courtroom gallery.
“Can I get out for Christmas, for the holiday?” Rhyme asked the judge, a pained expression on his face.
“No,” Howard said. “Take him back.”
