When she made the traffic stop — alone and at night on a gravel road — Lakemoor Police Office Brianna Tedesco thought the man behind the wheel looked “soulless.”
She didn’t know then, on that July 26, 2018 night, that Kenneth Martell, 36, was suspected of a gruesome murder in Pennsylvania and that the 88-year-old victim’s teeth were in a pill bottle in Martell’s SUV.
Within seconds, Tedesco was in a struggle for her life, trying to wrestle a gun out of Martell’s grip. Martell pulled the trigger, but the gun didn’t fire. Tedesco’s backup arrived in time, fatally shooting Martell.
Tedesco said she was at first lauded for her bravery by her boss, Police Chief David Godlewski, but then later fired, after she experienced post-traumatic stress disorder and the department claimed she could no longer do her job, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court this week.
Tedesco is, among other things, seeking her job back, claiming she is a victim of discrimination and retaliation.
“The Village of Lakemoor decided to treat my client like a piece of equipment, as opposed to a human being that became damaged as a result of a heroic act of courage and bravery, while protecting the citizens of Lakemoor,” said Tedesco’s attorney, Dan Herbert.
Herbert said Tedesco’s case is a “tragic example” of a wider problem in which law enforcement agencies often aren’t equipped to provide adequate mental health care for officers and that officers often don’t come forward for fear of retaliation.
“So police officers are not being honest. Who loses in that situation? We do as the public because we have police officers who are working with mental health issues that are not being treated, not being disclosed,” Herbert said.
Tedesco said her dismissal was “devastating.” She worked for the department for about two years, beginning in June 2017.
“I come from a family of law enforcement. My dream was cut short, and it wasn’t by the man in the vehicle that night,” Tedesco said, seated beside Herbert at his downtown Chicago office.
Dominick Lanzito, the attorney representing the north suburban Village of Lakemoor in the case, said Thursday that the village doesn’t discuss pending litigation.
But in a response to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint, Lanzito said there was no evidence of discrimination, but plenty that “Tedesco could no longer perform the essential functions of the job of a police officer, either with or without an accommodation.”
Tedesco initially returned to full-time work about five weeks after the shooting.
“I began to feel that everywhere I went, there was someone waiting to kill me, essentially,” Tedesco said Thursday. “Every traffic stop I made after that, my immediate thought was, I’m going to die today.”
Tedesco says she asked her boss for some special accommodations, including working a day shift with a partner, but that the requests were denied.
She was fired in mid-July 2019, according to the lawsuit.
Tedesco, who is pregnant, said she is in school studying psychology.
