A judge on Monday acquitted a Chicago police commander accused of shoving his gun down a suspect’s throat, outlining what she said were flaws in the state’s case and stressing that it shouldn’t be conflated with other recent cases of alleged police misconduct that have come to the fore in Chicago and elsewhere. Glenn Evans not guilty of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and official misconduct. Evans is accused of threatening to kill Rickey Williams and shoving his gun down Williams’ throat in 2013.
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After Evans mistakenly thought he saw Williams with a gun at a bus stop, he tailed him and “in the name of justice”, let his “anger and aggression get the best of him as young impressionable officers looked on”, Freeman said. Williams testified that he hadn’t been carrying a gun and that Evans must have mistaken it for a cellphone he had been holding. The judge however said the DNA was contact or touch DNA and that Evans could have touched Williams and then his own gun.
“His testimony was… unreasonable, improbable and contrary to human experience”, she said of Williams.
Cannon said she didn’t find Williams’ story believable, accusing him of changing it repeatedly. He said Evans shoved his gun so far down his throat that he gagged and later spat blood.
Judge Diane Cannon also played up the inconsistencies in Rickey Williams’ account of the on-duty 2011 incident over the years, saying his testimony at the trial last week “taxes the gullibility of the credulous”. Evans could have faced up to five years in prison, if convicted.
But Cannon said Williams’ testimony was inconsistent.
Cmdr. Glenn Evans also is accused of pressing a stun gun to the suspect’s groin.
The gun that Evans allegedly shoved down Williams’ throat is a central piece of evidence in the trial.
They point out that Williams’ DNA was found on Evans’ service weapon and that the city’s main police oversight agency, the Independent Police Review Authority, recommended that Evans be relieved of his police powers over the incident.
“Why shouldn’t the judge”, Blandis sarcastically told reporters after the verdict, referring to DNA decision.
Recently fired Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy called Evans “his best guy”, according to a WBEZ report previous year preceding the trial, which also noted that the feeling among officers toward Evans wasn’t universal.
The amount of force that can be used by police officers has become a focus of national debate due to a series of high-profile police killings of black men by mainly white officers in US cities.
“It can not be ignored that IPRA was the sole investigating agency”, Morask said, dubbing the agency “inept, corrupt and comically laughable”. The footage sparked protests across the city, which led, in part, to the forced resignation of Police Supt. “In what world is putting a gun barrel down someone’s throat doing police (work)?”
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Campbell, in her report, said that the Grand Crossing employee in 2013 mentioned that Evans didn’t check out a Taser on the afternoon in question but told her, “He is the commander”.
