former Chicago police officer convicted of murder for fatally shooting an unarmed man in 2017 was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison.
Lowell Houser, 60, sat slumped in a chair between his lawyers as Cook County Judge William Gamboney handed down the sentence. The charges carried a possible sentence of probation or a maximum term of 20 years. Houser will get credit for the nearly three years he spent on an ankle monitor awaiting trial. He is expected to be released from custody in about two years.
Houser was the first Chicago officer to be found guilty of murder since the 2018 conviction of Jason Van Dyke for the shooting death of black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Besides second-degree murder, Van Dyke was convicted of 16 counts of aggravated battery one for each bullet the white officer fired at the black teenager.
