CHICAGO — A fifth officer from a contentious Chicago police tactical unit has been relieved of his duties amid numerous misconduct allegations and rising legal challenges, according to recent court documents.
Just two days following an investigative report by ABC7’s I-Team on the 1863 tactical unit, Officer Richard Rodriquez Jr. was stripped of his police powers. This unit, consisting of eight officers, has faced accusations of conducting unlawful searches on motorists in the Near North Side over several years.
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The manner in which Rodriquez lost his police authority has been described as “an unusual development” by civil rights attorney Jordan Marsh. During a court-ordered deposition related to an alleged unlawful traffic stop, a Chicago Police Department sergeant interrupted proceedings to escort Rodriquez to headquarters, where he surrendered his badge and firearm.
Marsh, representing 12 plaintiffs in lawsuits against the department and city over alleged misconduct by the 1863 unit, was conducting the deposition. He characterized the interruption as “unprecedented.”
“The police department does not have the authority to determine when a court-ordered deposition concludes,” Marsh stated.
For the past year, Marsh has been attempting to question Rodriquez under oath about his activities with the 1863 team.
Previously, Marsh had worked for the city of Chicago’s Corporation Counsel for nearly two decades, representing Chicago police officers in court. But now, he’s on the other side, representing drivers suing Chicago police.
And after years of litigation, some of those officers, like Rodriquez, have now been pulled off the street pending an internal investigation.
“They’re not going to be able to pull anyone over. They’re not going to be able to harass anyone. They’re not going to be able to profile anyone. So that’s positive,” Marsh said.
As the I-Team reported last Wednesday, four other members of the 1863 tactical team — Officers Joseph Vecchio, Mario Fuentes, Nicu Tohatan and Michael Donnelly — have also been relieved of police powers while the tactical team’s sergeant and Officer Rodriquez were initially reassigned to different parts of the city.
The I-Team previously contacted all four of those other officers and their attorneys for comment, but they did not respond.
A Chicago police department spokesperson told the I-Team on Tuesday that Officer Fuentes has “submitted his paperwork for resignation” earlier this month.
Only two officers of the original eight-person 1863 tactical team are still working in the 18th District, the I-Team found.
Those five members of the 1863 tactical team have faced the most misconduct complaints of any other officers in the department, according to records from the Civilian Office for Police Accountability (COPA) obtained by the I-Team.
Collectively, members of the 1863 tactical team, including Vecchio, Fuentes, Tohatan, Donnelly, and Rodriquez, have been named in 23 civil rights lawsuits filed in the last five years. In court filings, the officers and city have denied allegations of wrongdoing.
Those lawsuits include a 2024 case filed against Rodriquez and Donnelly over an alleged unlawful arrest and search of two Chicagoans named Jovan Streeter and Marquita Beecham in 2023.
Friday’s shortened deposition of Officer Rodriquez was for this specific case.
Body-worn camera video of the 2023 traffic stop was shared with the I-Team and is now evidence in the lawsuit filed by Streeter and Beecham against the city and officers.
The couple alleges they were pulled over for failing to register their vehicle, a charge that was later dismissed, and during the encounter, the couple accused Rodriquez of “abusive and threatening behavior.”
“This is a legit traffic stop. I’m not harassing [expletive] anybody in the city of Chicago,” Rodriquez can be heard saying in the video, referring to Streeter and Beecham. “I don’t give a [expletive] about you, or this mother [expletive] here.”
“I don’t give a [expletive] about this car or this [expletive], bro,” Rodriquez said in the recording, using a derogatory word for the female passenger, Beecham, before deactivating his body-worn camera.
According to court and disciplinary records, the 2023 stop and search was investigated internally and Rodriquez was suspended for three days “for using profanity when interacting with two members of the public, as well as prematurely deactivating his [body-worn camera].”
An October 2025 memo sent to Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling by a COPA Interim Chief Administrator requested Rodriquez be reassigned and considered for placement into CPD’s Behavioral Intervention System.
The memo said during Rodriquez’s eight-year employment with the department, he had been named in 67 misconduct complaints, which was “the second highest number of [complaint] investigations in the entire Department,” COPA wrote.
The COPA investigator said, “The majority of the complaints against Officer Rodriquez involve his activities as part of the 1863 tactical team.”
Prior to Rodriquez being stripped of his police powers, a CPD spokesperson said he had been reassigned out of the 18th district to the Bureau of Patrol.
Rodriquez and his attorney did not respond to the I-Team’s request for comment. In a response to the lawsuit filed in court, he denied the allegations of “abusive and threatening behavior” in the Streeter/Beecham stop.
Following the shortened deposition of Rodriquez, Marsh filed a “motion to compel” with the court, asking U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland to order Rodriquez to sit-down for a new deposition, and for the city to explain what happened, among other requests.
Both the Chicago Police Department and Department of Law declined to comment for this story, citing pending litigation.
Judge Rowland ordered the city to respond to Marsh’s filing by the end of this week.
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