Chicago mayor’s bodyguard showed up for work drunk after partying at Trump Tower, report says

A police officer assigned to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson’s security detail was suspended from work earlier this year after reporting for duty still drunk, having attended an event celebrating President Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to a report.

Officer Josue Najera, 44, had been scheduled to work the 9 pm to 6 am shift guarding Johnson’s home on West Superior Street on January 20 but was suspected of being intoxicated upon arrival, according to Chicago Police Department (CPD) internal affairs records cited by The Chicago Tribune.

According to the report, the officer is believed to have attended a celebratory inauguration viewing event at Trump Tower on the Chicago River just prior to reporting for duty, a site that also attracted anti-Trump protesters that day, with activists braving sub-zero temperatures to make their opposition to the new president known.

The CBD records show that around 7 p.m. on the evening in question, Najera asked a uniformed CPD officer to let him sit in a squad car. The officer refused, prompting Najera to call the department’s 18th District station to ask that a complaint be filed against his colleague.

A supervisor there subsequently contacted Najera’s sergeant overseeing the mayor’s security arrangement to notify them of the incident, leading to the confrontation at Johnson’s residence when the officer arrived for his shift.

“PO Najera was agitated, speaking loudly and avoiding eye contact while explaining the event,” an internal affairs report states.

“His behavior was very uncharacteristic and erratic from the normal behavior [the sergeant] knows PO Najera to display.

“[The sergeant] asked PO Najera if he had been drinking while at the Trump Tower [party] and he said he was having fun with his family… [The sergeant] again asked if PO Najera had anything to drink and PO Najera answered in the affirmative – Yes.”

The officer’s gun was duly confiscated, and he was subsequently taken to the 15th District for questioning and given the breathalyzer test, the records state, the outcome of which led to Najera turning in his ID, badge, and hat shield the following day.

When a breathalyzer test returned a result of 0.134 blood alcohol content later that evening, he was handed a 25-day suspension, which the newspaper reports he has yet to serve.

Najera, who joined the CPD in 2017, is understood to have been first assigned to Mayor Johnson’s detail in August 2023.

He has no prior sustained misconduct complaints on his record and has never been the subject of a Summary Punishment Action Request, an internal procedure for handling minor infractions.

A CPD spokesperson said Najera has since been reassigned to the department’s Alternate Response Section.

Online records show that Najera is paid $97,974 per year.

The Independent has contacted the Chicago Mayor’s Office for comment.

President Trump and his administration have been highly critical of Illinois in recent months over Chicago’s crime rate and the state’s handling of immigration policy, with Mayor Johnson summoned to address Congress on the latter subject in March and state governor JB Pritzker expected to follow suit next month.

Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem drew criticism after staging a speech attacking “migrant crime” outside the Springfield home of murder victim Emma Shafer after her original plan to speak at Pritzker’s mansion had to be abandoned due to expected protests.