Gun count tossed in officer beating case

CHICAGO — Prosecutors dropped a gun charge against a Chicago man implicated in the 2014 beating of an off-duty police sergeant after the case unraveled over questions about the actions of the sergeant and two other officers who were with him.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Cook County prosecutors released Joseph Baskins from jail, saying they couldn’t prove their case stemming from an October 2014 confrontation in a parking garage. Records show that the three officers, who declined to speak with reporters, gave authorities varying accounts of what happened.

Chicago police portrayed the incident as a robbery, with Baskins as the culprit and Sgt. Patrick Gilmore, who suffered brain damage, as the victim.

Baskins, who is black, said the officers, all white, never identified themselves as police and made racial slurs.

Gilmore said he confronted Baskins because he smelled marijuana, records show. Gilmore said he approached Baskins’ group, flashing his badge and his gun, and was immediately jumped.

The then-28-year-old Baskins, his fiance, relatives and friends had parked in the garage on their way to a wedding at City Hall. Gilmore and the other officers, Michael Kelly and Marc Jarocki, were heading to their car after meeting with city attorneys about a separate, unrelated federal civil-rights lawsuit accusing them of having conducted an illegal search.

Kelly, 42, and Jarocki, 36, were stripped of their police powers pending the outcome of an internal affairs investigation. Gilmore is on disability leave.