Chicago cop found not guilty in brutality case
CHICAGO — A Chicago police commander was found not guilty on Monday after being accused of shoving his gun down a suspect's throat and threatening to kill him.
Cmdr. Glenn Evans, 53, a veteran cop who had faced dozens of citizen complaints prior to the incident but was also praised by Chicago Police Department brass for his effectiveness, was acquitted of two counts of aggravated battery and seven counts of official misconduct after Cook County Judge Diane Gordon Cannon concluded that the young man who accused the 29-year department veteran of abuse, Ricky Williams, lacked credibility.
The ruling comes as the city has seen more than two weeks of street protests after Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration was forced to release a disturbing police video that showed police officer Jason Van Dyke repeatedly shooting Laquan McDonald, a black teenager who appeared to be veering away from the officer when he opened fire. Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder on Nov. 24, the same day as the video's release.
Emanuel also has shaken up the police department with the firing of Superintendent Garry McCarthy earlier this month. Last week, the embattled mayor ousted Scott Ando, the head of the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), the city agency tasked with reviewing serious allegations of police misconduct that helped spur the criminal investigation of Evans. One of Ando's investigators referred the case to Cook County State's Attorney's Office for prosecution.
In making her ruling, Cannon said that Williams' shifting accounts throughout the investigation process and in his testimony in court "taxes the gullibility of the credulous."
Evans' attorneys called the ruling a vindication of Evans and excoriated IPRA's investigation of their client.
The agency is under fire for failing to aggressively pursue police misconduct, with less than 2% of allegations against Chicago cops over the last eight years being found to have merit. In this case, attorneys for Evans say the agency unjustly went after their client.
"I think Mr. Ando is a very intelligent man, but he clearly did not have command or control of his organization," said Dean Morask, an attorney for Evans. "The idea that underlings could refer cases for criminal prosecution and that decision is not made by the leader of that organization is ridiculous."
Cannon noted that Williams said that Evans also held a taser to his groin, though the police department had no record of one being issued to him. Police officers at the scene disputed the claim.
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The judge also pointed to varying accounts of descriptions of the police officer's appearance. At one point during the investigation, Williams called IPRA and asked whether he should amend his description of Evans after seeing a photo in which the officer was wearing glasses.
Williams appeared "eager to change his testimony at anyone's request to accommodate the evidence," Cannon concluded.
Evans did not testify in the three-day bench trial. But his attorneys said Evans confronted Williams in the January 2013 incident after he saw Williams holding a blue steel handgun as he stood near a bus stop on the city's South Side. Williams ran away and was chased down by Evans in an abandoned home.
Williams, who the officer found hiding in a closet in the abandoned home, testified that when Evans caught up to him he put his weapon so far down his throat that he gagged and spat blood. He also said that Evans held a taser to his groin as he threatened to kill him if he didn't tell him where he was hiding the gun.
The alleged weapon that Evans claimed he saw Williams holding was never recovered.
"Judge Cannon went out of her way to put the victim on trial," said Stephan Blandin, an attorney representing Williams in civil lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department. "In what world is putting a gun barrel down someone's throat doing police (work)?"
Williams filed a complaint with IPRA against Evans, who had dozens of previous complaints filed against him by citizens, a day after the alleged incident. A swab of Evans' gun found the accuser's DNA on the weapon.
"This case underscores the reality that it is extremely difficult to convince judges or juries in Cook County and around the country to convict police officers of misconduct in the line of duty, despite the fact that this victim made an immediate outcry and we had DNA evidence to support our case," Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said in a statement after the ruling.
But Cannon said that the DNA evidence only established that Evans had contact with Williams, something that was not in dispute.
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The not guilty verdict also marks another setback for Alvarez, who has faced calls for her resignation since last month's release of the dashcam video documenting the police shooting of Laquan McDonald
In the aftermath of the release of the McDonald video, protesters, as well as some African-American politicians, have taken aim at Alvarez for being slow and inept in prosecuting police officers. In the McDonald case, her critics note it to took Alvarez 13 months to charge Van Dyke, and that charge was only announced after a judge forced the Emanuel administration to make public the dashcam video of the incident.
Alvarez has also taken heat for her office's prosecution of Chicago police officer Dante Servin, who was found not guilty of involuntary manslaughter earlier this year after he shot into a crowd during 2012 incident and killed 22-year Rekia Boyd, an unarmed African-American woman.
In an unexpected twist, Servin was found not guilty in May after Cook County Judge Dennis Porter said prosecutors should have charged the officer with a more serious offense than involuntary manslaughter. Porter, in ending the bench trial, said Servin acted "beyond reckless," so he could not be found guilty of involuntary manslaughter.
Alvarez, who is facing two challengers in the Democratic primary set for March, said after Monday's loss that she would not let the setback deter her.
"Regardless of today’s ruling, I stand strongly behind the decision to charge Commander Evans with these crimes," she said. "And as I have proven by my actions throughout the course of my administration, the State’s Attorney’s Office will never hesitate to bring criminal charges against police officers when they are supported by the facts, the evidence and the law."
Evans did not speak to reporters as he left the courthouse surrounded by more than a dozen police officers and supporters.
His attorneys said they were uncertain, if Evans, who has been suspended since he was charged, would return to duty or retire from the police force now that he's been cleared of criminal wrongdoing.