A Country Club Hills
police officer was drinking at a friend’s house in March when he started firing
his gun, sending bullets into a neighboring house and vehicle, and then tried
to hide evidence of the shooting, Cook County prosecutors said Tuesday.
Officer John Silas is
charged with reckless discharge of a firearm. In court Tuesday, Circuit Court
Judge Darren Bowden ordered him held on $75,000 bail.
Prosecutors said Silas
got off work March 8 and started drinking alcohol at a friend’s home in the
17000 block of Baker Street in Country Club Hills.
About 8 p.m., Silas
pulled his semiautomatic service gun and fired several shots toward the ground,
with one bullet going through the front window of a house across the street and
lodging into a wall, according to prosecutors.
They said a resident of
the house “had been sitting on a couch directly next to the front window just
seconds before the bullet was fired” but was not injured.
The resident called 911,
and police responded, finding the bullet in the wall and another inside a sport
utility vehicle that was parked in the driveway of the house, prosecutors said.
Silas tried to cover up
his involvement, later calling one of the investigating officers and asking him
for a favor “by getting rid of evidence recovered from the home,” according to
a statement from the state’s attorney’s office. “During a second phone call to
the officer, Silas acknowledged that he was shooting bullets into the ground
when one accidently went into the front window of the home across the street.”
The Illinois State
Police Forensics Lab was able to confirm that the bullet in the wall was fired
from Silas’ gun.
