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After having his criminal case dropped ahead of trial, a Chicago police officer now faces dismissal for allegedly beating a teenage boy after he crashed a stolen car during a chase in Woodlawn in January 2021.Police Supt. Larry Snelling filed formal disciplinary charges against Officer Jeffery Shafer last month, alleging that Shafer had engaged in an improper pursuit, attacked the 17-year-old driver, verbally assaulted another person and failed to turn on his body camera.Shafer and his partner, Officer Victor Guebara, were previously charged criminally, but Guebara hasn’t faced similar disciplinary charges filed with the Chicago Police Board, records show. Their criminal charges were dropped roughly three years after the alleged beating, just as a bench trial was set to begin. Prosecutors said the alleged victim had stopped cooperating.Shafer and Guebara were patrolling on the morning of Jan. 10, 2021, when they saw the teen driving a Chevrolet Camaro and learned it had been reported stolen, prosecutors previously said. The Camaro drove onto a sidewalk, lightly struck the officers’ squad car and ultimately crashed into a brick garage in the 6400 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue.Another officer detained the boy in a vacant lot, and Guebara punched him in his face as he “laid on his stomach with his left arm behind his back and his right arm under his chin,” prosecutors said.When Guebara walked away, Shafer punched the teen four times in his head while he laid on the sidewalk, then pushed his face into the concrete, prosecutors said. After the teen was handcuffed, Shafer allegedly brought him to his feet and pushed him “face-first into a metal fence.”Shafer and Guebara failed to activate their body cameras, prosecutors said, but the incident was recorded by other officers and police surveillance cameras nearby.After a gun was found in the Camaro’s glove box, the two officers claimed the teen had aimed at them during the pursuit, prosecutors said. But they hadn’t reported the gun-pointing over police radio or mentioned it during the arrest.The boy’s charges were dropped earlier in 2021, prosecutors said.Shafer’s attorney didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.Shafer was previously named in a lawsuit alleging that he and other officers executed a “bad search warrant” as an infant slept in her crib and the mother and her other children got ready for bed. No contraband was found during the 2019 raid, and the target of the warrant didn’t live at the apartment that was searched, the suit stated. It was settled for $325,000.Shafer has been the subject of at least eight other complaints, including a sustained allegation for unintentionally firing his gun, according to city records. Four of those cases involved allegations of excessive force.In one case, Shafer was accused of punching a protester in July 2018 in South Shore, near the scene of a fatal police shooting days earlier. A commander told investigators that he saw video footage that showed Shafer was punched first.Shafer wasn’t interviewed because he was “on an extended leave of absence from the Department due to an unrelated criminal matter,” according to a report by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.He has elected to have his case heard by an independent arbitrator, instead of the police board, records show. The state Supreme Court will soon decide whether such cases can be heard behind closed doors after the Fraternal Order of Police appealed an appellate court ruling that required the most serious police disciplinary cases to be arbitrated in public.

He took it.Give Donald Trump credit. Truly a wonder. A continual marvel of what human beings are capable of doing: the Great Pyramid of Giza, Hoover Dam, and Donald J. Trump.I'm serious. Despite decades of his toddler pettiness being ground in our faces, daily if not hourly, the man still manages to surprise. How can that be? Maybe because we cling to our traditional values, and confronted with someone who is an utter moral void, untouched by conscience, self-awareness or humility, the mind just rebels and insists on assigning him a notional decency he actually doesn't possess. Last week, Maria Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, gave the U.S. president her Nobel Peace Prize, the latest in a series of blatant buy-offs attempting to curry favor. The Swiss delivered a gold brick. Qatar gifted a plane. Machado handed over her Nobel.And he took it. The irony of a man who thunders against DEI as undercutting achievement through merit, then turning around and accepting a prize earned by a Latina, hardly needs to be pointed out. Opinion bug Opinion Maybe my mind boggles extra hard at this because I'm so averse to awards. Sour grapes, perhaps, since I seldom win one. But unlike the president, I don't go out of my way trying to win them either. I have never, for instance, applied for the highest award in journalism, the Pulitzer Prize, because A) applying seems a waste of time; B) I know how political the award process is, being familiar with Tribune panjandrums on the awards committee and C) I am too busy writing stuff.Not that I wouldn't take one. From the Pulitzer Prize Board at Columbia University. Not from any random past winner. Though it's fun to imagine a scenario similar to what played out last week in the surreal farce called Washington, D.C."Hey buddy," Mark Konkol says, over the phone. "You know, I was reading another one of your hard-hitting columns and was struck, yet again, by how unfair it is that I was given the Pulitzer Prize while your high-caliber professional journalism is somehow always overlooked. So I'm going to hop on my motorcycle and blast up to Northbrook and give you mine, along with my heartiest congratulations."That would horrify me. I would beg Mark not to do it. Honors can curse as well as uplift. They're a monkey's paw. Even legitimately won prizes. I wasn't the paper's charities, foundations and private social services reporter for long, but managed to write a story on how the MacArthur Foundation's "genius" grants ruin people's lives. Recipients kill themselves, get divorced, have breakdowns, stop creating whatever it is that snagged the award in the first place. Not all winners, obviously. But enough for a story.The MacArthur Foundation didn't send out a press release tipping me off to this. I just knew it had to be so, and went looking. Because every rose comes with thorns. With honor, mitigation. In 2009, Barack Obama was abashed, almost horrified, when nine months into his first term he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He said he didn't deserve it. He was right.Trump is the opposite. Look at his frenzy of self-honor. Renaming buildings, ships, accepting that joke FIFA peace prize. Won't someone tell him that the whole point of an honor is that other people are bestowing it? "Self-praise is self-damnation," as Cervantes writes. Besides, no amount of honor can fill the gaping hole where a person's soul should be. No end in sight. Every day, something worse. Every brag, a blot. This is why highlighting any particular act of wrongness is a loser's game. Over the weekend, Trump wrote to Norway's prime minister saying, since he wasn't given the Nobel Peace Prize, he no longer needs to "think purely of Peace" and can seize "complete and total control of Greenland." As if invading Greenland isn't bonkers enough— and setting aside that the Nobel is given by a 5-member Norwegian committee, not the country itself — Trump found a way to make it even crazier. Framing it himself as a tantrum,…

The Bears signed 14 players to reserve/futures contracts Tuesday, two days after their season ended with a playoff loss to the Rams.Futures deals are contracts handed out to players not on the 53-man roster that take effect when the new league year begins in March.Among those signed to futures deals were running back Brittain Brown, who scored against the Bengals this year; tight end Nikola Kalinic, who played special teams in the Bears' two postseason games; and linebacker Nephi Sewell, whom the Bears signed earlier this month. His brother Noah, also a linebacker, is on the Bears' roster.Others signed were:• wide receiver Maurice Alexander• tight end Stephen Carlson• long snapper Luke Elkin• cornerback Dallis Flowers• defensive lineman Jonathan Garvin• linebacker Dominique Hampton• offensive lineman Kyle Hergel• cornerback Dontae Manning• defensive lineman Jeremiah Martin• safety Gervarrius Owens• wide receiver JP Richardson. All have been on the Bears' practice squad or in training camp with the team. Latest on the Bears Bears Bears sign 14 players to futures contracts Running back Brittain Brown was among those signed. [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   By Patrick Finley read Bears Progress aside, Bears WR Rome Odunze calls his performance in Year 2 'definitely disappointing' Odunze, the team’s leading receiver before being sidelined for the last five games of the regular season, made no excuses and said there were too many “missed opportunities” for him. [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   By Jason Lieser read Bears Bears to hire Boston College offensive coordinator Will Lawing It’s unclear what role he’ll have under Ben Johnson, with whom he played at North Carolina. [month] [day], [year], [hour]:[minute][ampm] [timezone]   By Patrick Finley read

Duke has filed a lawsuit against quarterback Darian Mensah seeking to block his efforts to transfer and reach a contract with another school to play elsewhere next season.The university filed its complaint in Durham County Superior Court on Monday, three days after Mensah reversed his previously announced plan to return to the Blue Devils after leading them to the Atlantic Coast Conference title.The school argued that its two-season contract with Mensah — signed in July 2025 and running through 2026 — paid him for exclusive rights to market Mensah's name, image and likeness (NIL) tied to playing college football. It sought a temporary restraining order from the court to prevent Mensah from entering the portal along with blocking him from taking additional steps in the process of reaching a deal with a new school, arguing that the contract requires parties to go through arbitration before any dispute can be resolved."This case arises out of the decision of a star quarterback in the increasingly complex world of college athletics," the complaint states in its opening. "But at its core, this is a simple case that involves the integrity of contracts."Mensah, who transferred in from Tulane and even faced his former team, finished second in the Bowl Subdivision ranks by throwing for 3,973 yards while ranking tied for second with 34 passing touchdowns.The Mensah-Duke case is the latest in what has is becoming a more frequent occurrence in the revenue-sharing era of college sports: legal fights over contracts between schools and players seeking to transfer.Earlier this month, Washington quarterback Demond Williams Jr. announced plans to transfer before changing his mind two days later, coming amid multiple reports that the school was prepared to pursue legal options to enforce Williams' NIL contract.And in December, Missouri pass rusher Damon Wilson II filed a lawsuit claiming the athletic department at Georgia was trying to illegally punish him for entering the portal in January 2025.