Chicago police officer facing firing charged with domestic battery, records show
CHICAGO - Chicago Police Officer Joseph Vecchio turned himself in for arrest on Friday for allegedly beating and strangling a woman last week.
It was just the latest chapter in his troubled career with CPD during which he's faced numerous misconduct complaints and has been recommended to be fired.
What we know:
Vecchio, 31, was charged with felony aggravated domestic battery related to an incident on Tuesday, according to a Chicago Police Department spokesperson.
Joseph Vecchio
Vecchio was accused of punching the victim multiple times about her face and body, strangling her with both hands, and injuring her at his home in the 8700 block of W. Bryn Mawr Ave. on the city’s Northwest Side, according to court records. He also allegedly made the woman "clean up the bloody sheets" and threatened to kill her, court records show.
The two were in a dating relationship, per court records.
The victim then filed for an order of protection the next day, which was granted. A Cook County judge ordered him to have no further contact with the woman.
He was booked into the Cook County Jail on Saturday, per jail records.
Vecchio is expected to appear in court on Aug. 28.
Ofc. Vecchio faces firing
Dig deeper:
Vecchio has been relieved of his police powers since October of last year as he’s faced numerous misconduct complaints, according to data from the city’s Office of Inspector General.
Between September 2022 and September 2025, he racked up the most complaints of any officer in the department, and accumulated 40 logged complaints since 2020, per OIG records.
Also, this week, the Chicago Police Board announced that Vecchio faces firing due to his conduct in two separate cases.
In August 2024, Vecchio and another officer stopped a car for failing to signal when it entered traffic and told the driver their tinted windows were too dark.
The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) found that during the stop, Vecchio, along with another officer, improperly searched the car, that he patted down the driver without justification, and both officers "failed to accurately detail the facts and circumstances of their interaction with [the subject] in Chicago Police Department reports."
COPA’s chief administrator recommended that Vecchio be fired, which the Police Board concurred with.
In a second incident in October 2024, Vecchio and another officer approached a person sitting in their car near a Neiman Marcus store on the Near North Side. The person had a gun in the car's center console, which was found after Vecchio searched the car.
Vecchio was found to have detained the person and patted them down without justification, falsely claimed in his arrest report the person reached into their waistband to remove an "L-shaped object" and reached into the car's console.
COPA recommenced that Vecchio be fired for this incident as well, which the Police Board also agreed with.