In December 2021, Chicago police detectives determined that one of their colleagues murdered his girlfriend in her Northwest Side home.
The suspect, Officer Pierre Tyler, was soon charged with first-degree murder, and the case was considered cleared. Tyler’s attorney argued the woman was killed in self-defense, though, and a jury found him not guilty in May 2024.
Investigators had never found the gun that fired the fatal shot. But as it turns out, things were far from over.
The woman’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city, reaching a settlement agreement last year that provides about $20,000 to each of her two children, one of whom she shared with Tyler.
“Defendant City of Chicago knew or should have known that permitting Defendant Pierre Tyler to continue acting as a police officer created a foreseeable risk that he would abuse his position of authority to batter or otherwise abuse members of the public,” the lawsuit alleged.
Records from the city’s Office of Inspector General and Civilian Office of Police Accountability show Tyler was the subject of seven misconduct complaints during his Chicago Police Department career, including the one that stemmed from Andris Wofford’s shooting. At least three were sustained, records show, including an allegation of domestic violence in March 2021.
COPA called for him to be fired after that investigation concluded, and CPD agreed. Tyler resigned from CPD in September 2024, records show.
Tyler, now 33, has taken an additional step. He appeared for a court hearing last week as part of his effort to have the criminal charges expunged and sealed.
His was one of about a dozen petitions for expungement heard last week by Cook County Judge Mary Anna Planey at the Leighton Criminal Court Building. But Tyler’s case was the only one involving a former cop and a murder charge, although he was one of three current or former CPD officers who asked Planey to wipe their arrests from the record.
Cook County court records show Tyler’s petition to expunge and seal his criminal record was filed last September.
The next month, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office objected, citing “the nature and facts of the crime are such that the public, employers, and law enforcement should have access to the petitioner’s record.”
An officer arrested
Tyler was arrested on Dec. 9, 2021, and charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of 29-year-old Andris Wofford in her home in the 2100 block of North Nashville Avenue.
Tyler, an armed services veteran who joined CPD in 2016, went to Wofford’s home to speak with her about their relationship while the two children were looked after by other relatives. They soon began to argue, as Wofford believed Tyler was married to another woman.
Tyler claimed the two tussled over a gun before it discharged and killed Wofford. Prosecutors noted, though, that Wofford was wearing her coat when she was found and her fingernails showed no signs of a physical altercation.
Her family didn’t respond to an interview request.
Testifying in his own defense, Tyler said Wofford pointed a gun at him, her finger on the trigger, hands slightly shaking and eyes darting. Showing the movements to the courtroom, Tyler said he grabbed her in an attempt to disarm her, but instead, her hand went backward and the gun fired. Wofford was shot in the face.
“As her arm goes up, the firearm goes off,” he said. “Her body fell.”
Assistant State’s Attorney Michelle Papa asked Tyler to describe each movement of his body during the shooting.
“It makes no sense, I agree,” Papa said in one instance when Tyler struggled to describe his stance.
Tyler’s lawyer, Tim Grace, said Wofford was emotionally distraught, and he highlighted text messages she exchanged with a friend in the days before the shooting. She wrote that she was going to “spazz” out and that “he don’t even know what he’s walking into.”“She felt slighted,” Grace said. “She was consumed with rage.”
A CPD detective testified that Wofford’s body showed no sign of a struggle over the gun, which was never recovered. Further, the detective testified that Tyler first claimed that he was not present in the home at the time of the shooting.
Tyler told him he was meeting with a confidential informant, or CI, alone during the shooting. The detective told the jury it struck him as strange that Tyler would meet an informant alone without his weapon.
“You told detectives you went to meet a CI,” Papa said. “That was a lie.”
“It wasn’t,” Tyler responded.
“You went to meet a CI?” Papa asked.
“Saying a CI was a stretch,” he amended.
Still, a Cook County jury found Tyler not guilty in May 2024.
While the criminal case proceeded, Wofford’s family filed a three-count wrongful death lawsuit against Tyler and the city, alleging negligent hiring and battery.
Court records show the case was settled last year for $60,000, split three ways between Wofford’s two children and the attorney who represented the family.
Unusual efforts to clear records
A felony charge against a CPD officer — even one stemming from an off-duty incident — is relatively uncommon, and recent efforts by other former officers to have their criminal charges expunged have led to mixed results.
In 2019, a county judge granted an expungement petition by former CPD Detective David March, one of the officers accused and acquitted of trying to cover up the 2014 Laquan McDonald shooting. Also in 2019, former CPD Detective Dante Servin was denied in his effort to expunge and seal his charges in the fatal 2012 shooting of Rekia Boyd.
Last week, when Tyler was there, the results were mixed for the other two officers,
Former CPD Deputy Chief Roberto Nieves was arrested in September 2024 and charged with criminal damage to property after he allegedly popped the tire of a civilian’s vehicle at the Puerto Rican Festival and Parade in Humboldt Park in June 2024.
The state’s attorney’s office dropped the charges against Nieves in June 2025, about six months before he retired from CPD. Last week, before Judge Planey granted the expungement, Nieves told the judge that he was interested in rejoining CPD as a civilian employee.
Another CPD officer was charged in the same incident with Nieves, and Cook County court records no longer show details of his arrest. CPD records show he’s currently assigned to the Grand Central District on the Northwest Side.
Also ruled on was CPD Officer Daniel Fair’s petition to expunge and seal his 2023 arrest on charges of official misconduct and obstruction of justice after he allegedly lied in a report and gave false information about the origin of a gun that was recovered in 2020 on the Far South Side. Cook County Judge Ursula Walowski had found Fair not guilty in 2024, records show.
Fair remains a CPD officer, though he was stripped of his police powers and assigned to the alternate response section while the internal CPD discipline process continues, records show.
In objecting to Fair’s motion, Amaya told Planey: “The allegations were that he misled my office, misled the courts and falsified information in an arrest report that affected another individual’s life.”
Grace, who also represented Nieves and Fair, noted that the man who possessed the gun in question later pleaded guilty. “There was no basis to bring the prosecution against this officer,” he added.
Tyler will have to wait a bit longer for a resolution. Planey granted a motion from Assistant State’s Attorney Marlon Amaya to continue his hearing until March 9.
“After review, I would need additional time to speak to my supervisor,” Amaya told the judge.
“They’ve had at least 120 days to do that,” Grace, Tyler’s attorney, responded.
