Yesterday, a Cook County, Illinois, judge ordered the release of a photo of two Chicago police officers holding hunting rifles while standing over a black suspect dressed in antlers. One of the officers, Timothy McDermott, was fired last year over the picture, which was taken sometime between 1999 and 2003; the other cop, Jerome Finnigan, was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2011 for his role in a cop-lead gang responsible for a series of robberies.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that federal prosecutors gave the photo to police investigators in 2013. Last year, a police board voted 5 to 4 to fire McDermott (the four members who voted against firing him suggested a suspension instead).

From the Sun-Times:

Sgt. Michael Barz of internal affairs interviewed McDermott in June 2013.

“I do remember an incident where I took a photo with Finnigan and it appears that this is it,” McDermott said in a transcript of the interview. “Finnigan called me over, told me to get in the picture and I sat in the picture. The photo was taken, and I went back to the business I was doing that day.”

McDermott said he could not remember when or where the photo was taken, or anything about the man with the antlers.

“I am embarrassed by my participation in this photograph,” he said. “I made a mistake as a young, impressionable police officer who was trying to fit in.”


During an interview with federal prosecutors, Finnegan allegedly said that he and McDermott arrested the man for being in possession of “20 bags of weed” but that they later let him go—without filing an arrest report—because he didn’t have a serious criminal record.

McDermott, who is the step-son of former Chicago Police Superintendent Thomas Byrne, is appealing his dismissal, though it’s unclear if his attorney, Daniel Herbert, will attempt a different strategy than the one he employed during the initial police board hearing, during which he argued that the photo could’ve been a harmless Christmas gag.

“What’s to say this individual wasn’t performing at a Christmas pageant in the district and was dressed as a reindeer and had taken the reindeer suit off?” he said.

Later, Herbert suggested that the incident was similar to the Seinfeld episode in which Jerry was falsely accused of picking his nose.

According to the Sun-Times, McDermott was a defendant in four lawsuits prior to his dismissal. Settlements from those suits cost the city $162,000, plus hundreds of thousands more in attorney’s fees.

Photo of Jerome Finnigan, left, and Timothy McDermott via the Sun-Times. Contact the author at taylor@gawker.com.