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Fired over a decade-old photo showing him posing as a hunter with a Black man wearing antlers on his head, ex-veteran Chicago Police Detective Timothy McDermott wanted his job back.

But Cook County, Illinois Judge Thomas R. Allen on Wednesday upheld the October firing, saying, “It’s a horribly offensive photo,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

The photo, which surfaced on the Internet recently, showed McDermott and another officer holding rifles while squatting over a man with antlers on his head as if he had been bagged while hunting, the report notes.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

The Police Board had found McDermott guilty of bringing discredit on the department by taking part in the photo, disrespecting or maltreating a person on or off duty, and unlawful or unnecessary use or display of a weapon. In a 5-4 vote in October, he was fired on the recommendation of Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

McDermott’s lawyer, Daniel Herbert, said he would appeal the judge’s decision. He had argued in court earlier Wednesday that firing McDermott was too harsh a punishment and that there was no proof his client had mistreated the African-American man…

McDermott posed in the photo with Officer Jerome Finnigan, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence for carrying out robberies and home invasions while with the department’s since-disgraced Special Operations Section and for ordering a hit on a fellow officer who he believed was cooperating with investigators.

[…]

The identity of the black man in the photo is unknown. Even the date the photo was taken is unclear.

Arguing in defense of the firing, Patrick Polk, an attorney representing the city, called the photo “a disgrace to the Chicago Police Department and to the public it serves,” writes the Tribune.

We agree with Polk. That about sums it up.

SOURCE: Chicago Tribune | PHOTO CREDIT: Twitter

SEE ALSO:

So This Happened: Chicago Police Posed For Hunting-Inspired Photo With Black Man Dressed In Antlers

Judge Upholds Firing Of Ex-Chicago Cop Who Posed With Black Man Wearing Antlers  was originally published on newsone.com