CPD Detective Who Tweeted Selfie at Ariana Grande Under Investigation for Racist and Transphobic Comments

The sky is blue, the grass is green, and Chicago Police officers just can’t stop acting up on social media. 

Dozens of shockingly racist and transphobic social media posts from Detective Shawn Popow are currently under investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. 

Screenshots taken from Facebook and Twitter profiles verified as Popow’s show a long history of overtly bigoted posts, with some as recent as this week—and others stretching back more than a decade. Popow’s posts refer to Black people in dehumanizing terms such as “rats,” “subhuman wretches,” “subhuman savages,” “animals,” “ghetto mutts,” and “parasites.” He also gleefully celebrates police killings of civilians.

Detective Popow’s most offensive posts are found on a Twitter account where he goes by the screenname Südliche Polizei, translated directly from German as “Southern Police.” His handle, @SheepdogCPD, references a common policing trope wherein cops are the “sheepdogs” protecting sheep (citizens) from wolves.

Earlier this year, Popow replied to several Twitter users with an image reading, “Stupid Ass N**** Award”

Popow posted an image from a graphic scene in the movie American History X, in which a white supremacist kills a Black man by stomping his head on the curb. Above the image Popow wrote, “I bet yo mama could press your face into dough and make gorilla cookies,” with a laughing emoji.

In response to posts showing Black teens twerking or fighting, Popow referred to the behavior as a “chimpout,” sharing an Urban Dictionary definition of “An aggressive and violent outburst by a black person, such as tantrums of chimpanzees or baboons straight out of National Geographic’s nature shows. O.J. really did chimp out with Nicole by slashing her throat.”

One of Popow’s “chimpout” references included another meme which claims, in part, “The Black experiment has failed… they have become socially incompatible with other races by their own design.”

On both Facebook and Twitter, Popow frequently referred to parts of the city as the “ghetto.” Just last month, Popow described the “ghetto” as a “self-cleaning oven,” adding “As long as it doesn’t affect you and yours, leave it be. Leave civilization to the civilized.”

His posts about the “ghetto” date back to when he was a patrolman. In 2012, Popow shared a photo of a misspelled sign to his personal Facebook page which read, “Puppis [sic] for sale.” Popow described the photo as “Ghetto Edu-ma-ca-shun at its finest.”

Popow has long used dehumanizing terms to describe people in the “ghetto.” When he was a patrolman headed out on furlough he wrote, “the further away I drive from the ghetto rats, the better I feel.”

Earlier this year, he used the same phrasing in a thread to dehumanize teens gathering downtown, “These are rarely ‘teens’, just feral offspring of ghetto rats. Acting as they do.”

Popow mocks Black Chicagoans in a 2011 Facebook post where he wrote, “We didn’t call YOU, we called for da bam-ba-lamps! [ambulance].  He refers to the residents calling for help as “subhuman savages.” In another post, he complained that he had to work 25 minutes over his shift, which didn’t qualify for overtime, blaming the “savages not able to act right” and “stupid ghetto drama.”

Shortly after his promotion to detective last year, Popow shared a plainly racist meme reading “N—ggle me this, batman. What accounts for as little as 13%, but also for half?” a reference to white supremacist propaganda which compares the 13% of the U.S. population that is Black with some alleged crime rate.

A recent WBEZ investigative report highlighted the significant racial disparity in traffic stops by police in Chicago and throughout Illinois. According to the report, in Chicago, Black drivers were stopped by police more than four times as often as white drivers, even though the Black population is smaller—primarily due to racial biases in police practices.

In several posts, Popow celebrated police shooting and killing Black men. 

Popow shared a video on Twitter showing police firing multiple shots into a vehicle, killing a man. Popow wrote, “Any time police face a deadly force incident, it should 100[%] end like this… FAFO [Fuck around and find out] should be the CPD motto.”

The next morning, Popow shared the same video to his personal Facebook page, exclaiming, “I [heart] stories with happy endings!” again adding the tag “FAFO.”

This past May, Popow shared a post reading, “The face you make when you don’t understand what stop resisting means,” over the image of a Black man in a casket.

Popow has also made transphobic statements on social media. In a reply to a Twitter user who listed their pronouns in their bio along with “protect trans kids”, Popow replied with a photo of Aiden Hale (born Audrey), using the terms “was/were” in place of pronouns. Hale was a transgender male who killed three adults and three children in a Nashville school shooting, before he was killed by police.

When far-right propagandist Ian Miles Cheong, who once declared “I fucking love Hitler,” posted a photo mocking the appearance of Chrissy Teigen, Popow replied with a photo from one of the Saw movies with the caption “now identifies as female.”

When world-renowned anti-trans author J.K. Rowling wrote “No,” with an image reading, “Repeat after us: Trans women are women,” Popow replied with a revised image which stated, “Repeat after us: Trans women are not.”

Popow was promoted to detective last year. A review of Popow’s case load shows he primarily handles assault and battery complaints on the South Side, from Kenwood to Chicago Lawn.

Popow has been the subject of at least two previous misconduct settlements, both involving allegations of excessive force against a minor. A search of public records shows twelve other complaints lodged against Popow over his career, none of which appear to have resulted in a sustained finding or disciplinary action.

Records show COPA is now investigating Popow’s social media activity. Previous investigations into social media posts with violent imagery have failed to produce significant discipline or firing of officers, with many still remaining on the force despite statements targeting minorities. Who has jurisdiction over complaints involving bias-based hate speech is currently in flux—past cases have been investigated by the department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs, while some are investigated by civilian investigators with COPA.

Popow is vocal on social media about his distaste for civilian oversight of police, frequently using the hashtag “#CUCKFOPA.”

He is also connected on social media to Martin Earl Tully, a former Chicago Police officer who appears on a membership roll of the Oath Keepers. The far right militia recruited heavily from law enforcement and military prior to helping organize the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol. Tully now works for a private contractor providing security in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Illinois. Six months after the January 6 putsch, he received an “award for excellence in judicial security” from Chief U.S. district judge Rebecca Pallmeyer.

Popow is also connected to northwest side Sergeant Ammie Kessem on Facebook. Kessem has previously been investigated for anti-LGBTQ* comments falsely accusing a Chicago librarian of “grooming” children. She took and passed the Lieutenant’s exam after stoking “groomer” panic.

The police department declined to comment, citing an ongoing investigation. Detective Popow did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

How was it determined @SheepdogCPD is in fact Detective Popow? Besides his use of the same derogatory terms, sharing the same video hours apart on Facebook and Twitter, and frequently posting on Twitter that he is a Chicago cop—he once posted a selfie from his squad car, tagging musician Ariana Grande.

Popow and his partner at the time Ricardo Ocampo posted about the first two lines of her song Thank U, Next:

Thought I’d end up with Sean

But he wasn’t a match

Wrote some songs about Ricky

Now I listen and laugh

In this investigation, Shawn is a match, but no one is laughing.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story included some minor misattributions in our photo captions. Those mix-ups have since been corrected.