BLACK SOCIAL HISTORY
Trial postponed for Chicago police commander accused of putting gun down man's throat
A Chicago police commander accused of shoving the barrel of his service weapon down a suspect's throat and threatening to kill him had his June 22 bench trial delayed indefinitely Wednesday
Prosecutors asked to speak with Judge Diane Cannon in her chambers about a joint police internal affairs and city inspector general's office investigation that could be relevant at Cmdr. Glenn Evans' trial. The private meeting, which included Evans' lawyers, lasted about a half-hour.
The judge said she will rule later on whether the evidence needs to be turned over to Evans' attorneys after she reviews the material.
Evans faces two counts of aggravated battery and seven counts of official misconduct. He has pleaded not guilty.
The chief evidence against Evans appears to be the alleged victim's DNA on Evans' service weapon. But Evans' attorney, Laura Morask, has said the DNA doesn't distinguish whether the gun was placed inside the mouth of alleged victim Rickey Williams or simply touched by him during the course of his arrest in January 2013.
Community leaders in the tough South Side and West Side districts where Evans worked as commander praised his law-and-order approach, particularly his willingness to regularly work the streets himself, highly unusual for a cop of his rank.
But a Tribune analysis of internal Police Department records showed dozens of citizen complaints had been filed against Evans over a recent 81/2-year period. From January 2006 through July 2014 — a period in which Evans was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant and then again to commander — he amassed 36 complaints in all, far more than anyone else of his rank and exceeded by only 34 officers in the entire 12,000-strong department. He was never disciplined for any of those complaints, the records show.
Prosecutors had sought to bring out at trial Evans' "other crimes and bad acts," but Cannon rebuffed those efforts, finding that history of complaints and lawsuits too dated and irrelevant to the charges, according to Morask.
Prosecutors have said Evans was out patrolling on a January afternoon in 2013 in the Park Manor neighborhood because of a recent shooting. Evans said he saw Williams, then 22, holding a blue steel handgun while he stood near a bus stop in the 500 block of East 71st Street.
Williams has denied being armed and instead contended that Evans had pulled up in a squad car, staring at him for several minutes. Unnerved, he took off running, he said.
Evans radioed for assistance for a "man with a gun" and gave chase on foot as Williams ducked into an abandoned house.
A lawsuit brought by Williams alleged that as many as 10 other officers responded to the scene.
Prosecutors allege that Evans tackled Williams in the abandoned house, stuck the barrel of his .45-caliber Smith & Wesson semi-automatic "deep down" Williams' throat, held a Taser to his groin and threatened to kill him.
"Mother------, tell me where the guns are," prosecutors quoted Evans as saying.
Police conducted what prosecutors called "a systematic search" of the house and surrounding area but found no gun. Still, Williams was charged with misdemeanor reckless conduct.
Williams did not seek medical attention, but prosecutors said he suffered severe soreness to his throat for several days.
The next day, Williams contacted the Independent Police Review Authority, the city agency that investigates allegations of excessive force against Chicago police, and filed a complaint against Evans, making the allegations about the gun, Taser and death threat.
The misdemeanor charge against Williams was dropped almost three months later when no officers appeared in court.
After the state crime lab recovered Williams' DNA from Evans' service weapon, the police review authority recommended to Superintendent Garry McCarthy last April that Evans be removed from his commander's post. But McCarthy, who had publicly praised Evans for his aggressive style and promoted him, kept Evans in place until hours before he was charged Aug. 27. Evans has been on paid desk duty since then.
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