William Stewart Boyd, a judge in Cook County, traded his father’s old .38 caliber Smith & Wesson snub nose for less than $100 in a gun buy-back in 2004. It was supposed to be destroyed, but somehow the same handgun with serial number J515268 was found next to a dead body involved in a police shooting eight years later when 22-year-old Cesar A. Munive was shot and killed by Cicero Officer Donald Garrity in July of 2012. Boyd’s old revolver was found laying next to Munive’s body after the shooting. Now Boyd and others want to know how it got there.
Munive’s family has accused Garrity, a problem officer with a history of violence and disciplinary problems, of planting the handgun at the scene of the crime to justify his use of force. The city of Cicero is ready to pay Munive’s family $3.5 million to settle a civil rights lawsuit out of court.
