Sad isn’t it that we measure a man’s worth based on his past.
Community residents voice that they knew Evans as a kinder ad gentler compassionate policeman and cannot believe that he’s been charged with two counts of aggravated battery and seven counts of official misconduct. According to the Park Manor Neighborhood Association President, Evans was a Chicago police officer that enforced the law no matter what. He let the thugs know someone was going to do something.”
However Police Department records showed dozens of citizen complaints had been filed against Evans over a recent 8.5 year period. From January 2006 through July 2014 — a period in which Evans was promoted from sergeant to lieutenant and then again to commander — 36 complaints were filed against hi. That’s excessive and 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 Judge Diane 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 semiautomatic “deep down” Williams’ throat, held a Taser to his groin and threatened to kill him.
“Motherf—–, 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.
“The question that needs to be asked is what was Rickey Williams doing that would’ve justified pointing the gun at him and holding it so close to him to make contact?” said attorney Antonio Romanucci, who is representing Williams in a federal lawsuit, on hold pending the outcome of the criminal case. “Rickey Williams was committing no crime. He just ran from the police.”
After the state crime lab recovered Williams’ DNA from Evans’ service weapon, the Independent 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, proved loyal and kept Evans in place until hours before he was charged on Aug. 27. Since then Evans has been on paid desk duty.
It’s been nine months since Evans was charged. This high-profile case has been plagued with a revolving door of judges at the 26th and California criminal courthouse, populated by judges mostly with backgrounds as prosecutors.
As was its right under long-standing rules, the defense moved to automatically substitute the first judge assigned the case, Erica Reddick, who worked for 19 years defending indigent defendants as an assistant public defender. The next judge retired, while two other judges, William Lacy and Mary Margaret Brosnahan, each withdrew from the case without any public explanation.
Confident of Evans’ acquittal his attorney has long said she would seek a speedy trial. After being the fifth judge assigned the case on March 11, Cannon moved with unusual alacrity, setting the trial for June 22 earlier this month.
Veteran lawyers said Cannon, who has battled back from cancer, known for displaying a sometimes-harsh demeanor in the courtroom. Yet she but is also known to look for middle ground in her rulings despite being generally viewed as pro-prosecution. She was a Cook County assistant state’s attorney for 15 years before being elected to the bench in 1996. This could work in Evan’s favor. Lets hope for the best–that the evidence points to the truth
