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.
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Evans opted for a bench trial on the charges, and a Cook County judge found him not guilty on all nine counts Monday, after three days of testimony last week. How about outer space?
Williams “defied belief” when he said that Evans attacked him and another officer punched him and smashed his face into the kitchen floor in a decrepit, abandoned house at 7105 S. Eberhart Ave., Morask said.
Despite the passage of time, and with Chicago paying more than $500 million to settle cases with torture victims, the Burge legacy is still a potent one on the streets. Besides activists, calling for more changes are many top officials in the state Democratic Party, including Illinois State’s Attorney Lisa Madigan, who is supporting a bill by two state lawmakers who want to change the law to allow a recall election of the mayor.
“You’re telling me there was a tremendous amount of DNA there, but it was wiped?” she said.
If the trial failed to prove Evans’ guilt, it succeeded in exposing the failings of the Independent Police Review Authority, which has responsibility for investigating allegations of misconduct by Chicago cops.
Evans is a highly-decorated Chicago police officer who has also been the subject of more than four dozen citizen complaints in his 28 years of service. “Whatever happened today – which was a wonderful thing, and he is fully vindicated, he can never get back the last two years – ever”, said Laura Morask, Evans’ attorney. Both men are black.
Inside the house, Williams claimed Evans crammed a pistol into Williams’ mouth and held a Taser on his groin while demanding information on a recent shooting in the neighborhood.
State forensic experts found Williams’ DNA on Evans’ gun, according to court testimony. Former Chicago Police Supt.
Judge Diane Cannon on Monday found Cmdr.
Evans also had been accused of holding a Taser to Williams’ groin during his arrest for reckless conduct. Evans chose not to testify at his bench trial last week. Authorities said Johnson was armed with a 9mm gun with an extended clip, but his family rebuffs that claim and plans to sue the police department.
“This case underscores the reality that it is extremely hard 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”, said Alvarez.
Antonio Romanucci, Williams’ attorney, said his client will continue to push the civil lawsuit against the city of Chicago. A gun was never recovered from the scene. He also ruled that the officer’s supervisor should have intervened.
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The ruling marked another setback for State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, who despite bringing first-degree murder charges recently against Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke for shooting Laquan McDonald 16 times has been barraged with calls for her to resign over delaying the release of the dash-cam video of the fatal shooting until 13 months later. Dante Servin was charged with involuntary manslaughter and other charges in the shooting death of an unarmed black woman in 2012, but in April a judge suggested that prosecutors filed the wrong charges against the officer and acquitted him.
