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Looks like Eddie Johnson is messy.
The fired Chicago police chief and his former driver, Cynthia Donald, who was also part of his security detail, were reportedly caught on video kissing inside a Ceres Café bar the night he was found asleep in his car, according to The Daily Mail. Even though Johnson had been drinking, when officers found him asleep in his car, they did not give him a breathalyzer test and allowed him to leave the scene after he showed them his police ID.
READ MORE: Reports shed new light on Chicago police chief’s firing
Johnson was fired on Monday by Mayor Lori Lightfoot for lying to her about the incident.
Johnson and Donald reportedly spent three hours inside of the bar. Johnson promoted Donald, 44, to his security detail when he became police chief in 2012. She has since been reassigned to the evidence and recovered property division, a Chicago police spokeswoman reportedly told DailyMail.com.
Both Johnson and Donald are married, although Donald filed from divorce last year. Johnson’s wife, Nakia, is also on the police force. They married in 2017.
“I made a poor decision and had a lapse of judgment on the night of October 16,” Johnson wrote in a statement after his firing. “That was a mistake and I know that.”
Until his firing, Johnson was pretty much sticking to his original story that there was some sort of mix-up with his medication, which caused him to become drowsy. He did reportedly tell the mayor he had a few drinks but said he wasn’t drunk.
Johnson investigated the incident, along with the Office of the Inspector General, and based on that investigation, she made the decision to fire him on Monday – instead of letting him retire at the end of this month.
At a press conference, Lightfoot said had she known then what she knows now, she would have never joined Johnson and his family in November to announce his retirement – because she would have fired him right away.
READ MORE: Chicago police superintendent Eddie Johnson fired weeks before his retirement
“Just like with the public, Eddie Johnson intentionally lied to me several times,” Lightfoot said. “Even when I challenged him about the narrative he shared with me, he maintained that he was telling the truth. I now know definitively that he was not.”
“Had I known these facts at the time, I would have relieved him of his duties as superintendent then and there,” she added at the press conference. “I certainly would not have participated in a celebratory press conference to announce his retirement.”