The Chicago Police Department was three days late in reporting the shooting death of Officer John Bartholomew to state labor authorities last month, records show, a delay that could lead to citations for the department as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration launches its own investigation into the hospital attack.
Bartholomew, 38, was killed inside Swedish Hospital April 25, allegedly while guarding 26-year-old robbery suspect Alphanso Talley. State law requires police departments to report work-related fatalities within eight hours of their occurrence.
Police Department representatives didn’t respond to questions about what accounted for the delay in reporting to state authorities. Illinois Department of Labor spokesperson Paul Cicchini said the state Occupational Safety and Health Administration was conducting a follow-up probe into the circumstances around Bartholomew’s death, but wouldn’t discuss the specific targets of the investigation.
The notifications help OSHA determine whether they need to look into the death, Cicchini wrote in an email: “Timely reporting is important to assure that OSHA can gather information as soon as practicable after an incident occurs.”
Agencies that don’t report work-related deaths on time can be cited, he said. The state has six months to complete an investigation and submit its report to an agency following a work-related death.
An incident report obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request shows that a CPD “risk management” staffer called the state to report Bartholomew’s death around midday April 29, four days after he’d been killed.
The OSHA investigation marks another follow-up on the events of April 25, which also left a second officer, Nelson Crespo, severely wounded. CPD’s bureau of internal affairs has opened a probe into the two officers who initially searched Talley, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation, and a department representative said a follow-up investigation into the entire series of events that led up to shooting is underway.
Authorities have alleged that Bartholomew and Crespo were guarding Talley inside Swedish Hospital while Talley, whom they’d taken to the hospital after he said he had swallowed several bags of drugs and was having trouble breathing, awaited a CT scan. The reporting paperwork from the state labor department shows that the shooting took place inside the CT room.
Prosecutors said Talley had been given a hospital gown to change into but initially kept his pants on ahead of the scan. Hospital authorities said he’d been wanded upon entry and police records state that officers searched him at least once upon his arrest, where they recovered a wad of bloody cash from a dollar store robbery he’s accused of executing alongside one other person. A woman accused of illegally purchasing the gun for her then-boyfriend in Indiana formally pleaded not guilty Thursday. It is still not clear how the weapon, a 10 mm handgun with a flashlight attached, got into the hospital with Talley.
Bartholomew’s funeral took place May 8, where he was remembered
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as “a cop’s cop” with a sharp wit and an optimistic attitude. Crespo, who was shot in the chin, faces an uphill road to recovery, police Superintendent Larry Snelling said. An online fundraiser had accumulated almost $37,000 in donations meant to support his rehabilitation expenses as of Friday.