Judge Rejects Insanity Defense, Finds Man Guilty in 2010 Cop Slaying

Photo: The scene outside an Englewood police facility in July 2010. Chicago Police Officer Thor Soderberg, and Bryant Brewer, who was convicted of shooting the officer to death by a Cook County judge during his bench trial.

A Cook County judge rejected the insanity defense of a man on trial for killing a Chicago police officer in 2010 and found him guilty of first-degree murder.

Bryant Brewer, now 29, shot 43-year-old Officer Thor Soderberg three times with the officer’s own service weapon outside an Englewood police facility on July 7, 2010.

Cook County assistant state’s attorney Brian Sexton said Brewer hated police and grabbed Officer Soderberg’s gun when he set his duty belt down to change out of his uniform in the parking lot. Brewer grabbed the weapon and shot the officer three times.

Defense attorneys claimed that Brewer was acting in self-defense after Soderberg pistol-whipped him as Brewer tried scaling a five-foot fence. Attorneys for the defense argued throughout the bench trial that Brewer was diagnosed with schizophrenia at the Cook County Jail, an assertion the judge rejected.

As DNAinfo Chicago reported from the courtroom late Tuesday:

... as the seven-day bench trial drew to a close ... Joyce said he believed Brewer “brutally, callously, viciously and without compunction murdered Officer Thor Soderberg.”

The judge also said “there is simply no evidence of schizophrenia” and that if Soderberg “was shot in the back, that’s wholly inconsistent with self-defense.” Brewer was found guilty of first-degree murder, as well as several counts of attempted first-degree murder, armed robbery and discharge of a firearm.

When Joyce announced the ruling, Soderberg’s widow, Jennifer Loudon, let out an audible sigh and dropped her head to her lap.

A psychiatrist and expert witness for the defense, Dr. James Corcoran, said that Brewer was schizophrenic but could not reach an opinion as to whether he was insane at the time of the shooting.

Dr. Mathew Marcos, a forensic psychiatrist, who is director of the court-sponsored Forensic Clinical Services, testified that Brewer was not insane at the time of the shooting, the Chicago Tribune said.

The court psychiatrist said Brewer admitted that shooting the officer was wrong but did so anyway because Soderberg was “going to do me in,” according to testimony.

The prosecutor called Brewer a faker.

“He fakes symptoms,” Sexton said in his closing argument. “He fakes voices. He fakes other stuff so he can get medication and get high. ... He assassinated one of the finest in our city.”

In addition to the police officer Brewer killed, he also shot a handyman and a female police officer, who also testified last week, ABC 7 Chicago reported.