Aug. 04--A forensic psychiatrist, testifying Monday for the defense, said that the man who shot and killed a Chicago police officer suffered brain damage when the officer pistol-whipped him with his service weapon but said he couldn't tell if Bryant Brewer was legally insane at the time of the 2010 killing.
But later in the day, a psychologist hired by prosecutors testified Brewer was legally sane when he killed Officer Thor Soderberg, concluding he showed no signs of either a traumatic brain injury or mental illness.
The conflicting testimony came as Brewer's bench trial neared a conclusion. Cook County Judge Timothy Joyce will decide his fate, perhaps after closing arguments take place as early as Tuesday.
Brewer's lawyers have argued both an insanity defense and self-defense. Neither side disputes that Brewer shot Soderberg three times before firing at several other officers and one civilian outside a police deployment center in the Englewood neighborhood.
But the defense contends Brewer was mentally ill and feared for his life after Soderberg struck him on the head with his service weapon after seeing Brewer jump a fence at the police facility. When the two struggled physically and the weapon fell to the ground, Brewer shot the officer with the gun.
The defense psychiatrist, Dr. James Corcoran, clinical director of state-operated psychiatric hospitals for the Illinois Department of Human Services, testified that Brewer was inattentive, spoke in gibberish, and appeared disoriented and sometimes hostile during four interviews with him.
Corcoran said he believes Brewer, who was diagnosed in Cook County Jail as schizophrenic, suffered brain damage after Soderberg struck him in the head with his gun.
In a later interview, Brewer told him he saw Soderberg put his duty belt in the back seat of his personal car and then the officer said "he's got something for you to do," according to Corcoran.
"It makes no sense," Corcoran said. "It's as if Officer Soderberg is talking about himself in the third person."
Prosecutors have said Soderberg's shift had just ended and he was standing by the trunk of his personal car changing out of his uniform when he was surprised by Brewer.
Corcoran also noted that Brewer was extremely upset that a female police officer had shot at him after Soderberg's killing -- a point Brewer graphically made during a bizarre appearance on the witness stand last week. But Corcoran said the evidence showed the officer never fired her gun.
Corcoran, however, said he couldn't form an opinion on the crucial issue of whether Brewer was legally insane at the time of the killing as a result of being struck with Soderberg's service weapon.
Forensic psychologist Dr. Christofer Cooper, a rebuttal witness called by prosecutors, had no such difficulty. Cooper testified that during his four interviews he found Brewer's responses "very goal-oriented and contextually appropriate." But he said Brewer appeared to be trying to manipulate him.
Brewer also gave him a different version of how the shooting happened, Cooper said. He quoted Brewer as telling him that Soderberg was "drinking a Heineken so I didn't know what he was thinking so he was probably wanting to kill himself."
When the gun went off after a struggle, Cooper said Brewer told him, "I got scared and I thought I'm not going to get out of trouble so I shot him two more times."
Prosecutors also called Brewer's former housemate Vernon Brown, who testified Brewer talked several times about how much he hated police and wanted to kill them.
"I was afraid of my life because he appeared to me to be a violent person," Brown said.
sschmadeke@tribpub.com
