Officers used excessive force and have avoided accountability, in accordance with “de facto” city policy, complaint alleges.
CHICAGO — Today, on what should have been his twenty-first birthday, the family and loved ones of Roberto Calvario, Jr. filed a lawsuit in federal court, seeking justice for Mr. Calvario’s brutal death at the hands of the Chicago Police Department (CPD).
On December 9, 2025, CPD Officers Jose Salazar and Gilberto Gomez were responding to a 911 call on the 5700 block of North Washtenaw Ave in Chicago. The caller had reported seeing two Black men, dressed all in black, parking an SUV in her neighborhood and walking away from it.
Nothing the caller said suggested that a violent crime was in progress, and nothing about what she reported applied to Mr. Calvario, who was a light-skinned Latino and was not dressed all in black. Mr. Calvario—driving a car belonging to his girlfriend Sofia Salazar, who was in the passenger seat—stopped the car near the SUV reported in the call. Officers Salazar and Gomez accosted them, and Officer Salazar attempted to drag Mr. Calvario from his seat while holding his firearm. Less than 10 seconds after encountering Mr. Calvario—without cause, and without warning that deadly force would be used—Officer Salazar shot Mr. Calvario in the back of the head.
“They didn’t have to kill my son,” Roberto’s mother, Awilda Ramirez, said, in January, shortly after viewing the bodycam footage for the first time. “I want to ask that man why. I want to know why he shot my boy for nothing.”
The plaintiffs in this suit include Ms. Ramirez—both in her individual capacity, and as the representative of her son’s estate—and Ms. Salazar, who was forced from her car, ordered to lie beside her boyfriend while he slowly bled to death, then arrested and held overnight without probable cause. The complaint asks a federal jury to rule on 14 counts of civil rights violations under federal and state law, including excessive force, false arrest, unlawful seizure, assault, battery, infliction of emotional distress, and conspiracy.
“Roberto—a young man who should have had his whole life ahead of him—is dead because this officer shot him, without cause, within seconds of encountering him,” says attorney Maggie Filler. “Our clients, Ms. Ramirez and Ms. Salazar, have suffered loss and trauma that no one should ever have to endure. They are right to demand justice, and we are confident a jury will give it to them.”
The complaint filed today alleges that Officers Salazar and Gomez made false statements in official reports about what happened on December 9, falsely claiming that Off. Salazar was under attack when he shot Mr. Calvario. Additionally, it alleges that the Chicago Police Department failed to discipline the officers responsible for Roberto’s senseless killing.
The complaint also argues that the excessive force Salazar and Gomez used, and their attempts to cover it up, both had their roots in the de facto policies, practices, and customs of the Chicago Police Department. The complaint cites examples of uses of excessive force resulting in the deaths of innocent people, as well as many instances—most famously that of Laquan McDonald—of officers and administrators conspiring to hide the truth of police misconduct.
“The responsibility for this young man’s death starts with the officer who tried to pull him out of a car and then shot him in the head, but it doesn’t end with him,” says attorney David B. Owens. “Time and time again, the City of Chicago has not only sanctioned the brutality of cops like this, but also encouraged that brutality, excused it, and helped to cover it up. This city’s entire approach to law enforcement killed Roberto, and that’s what needs to change.”
The plaintiffs are represented by David B. Owens, partner at Loevy + Loevy and Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Washington School of Law; and Maggie Filler, attorney at Loevy + Loevy.