Page 9 - December 2019 FOP Magazine

SecondVice President’s Report
Has COPA joined media in targeting police commander?
In yet another chilling sign of collusion between the City’s police oversight agency and the media to frame police officers, we have learned that COPA is “continuing to investigate” former Commander Glenn Evans for a shooting that took place more than two decades ago.
In doing so, it looks as if COPA is once again aid- ing Chicago’s activist media to completely rewrite history, the law and public record in an attempt to continue its attack on targeted police officers by
generating cases against them.
One would think that the City’s police oversight agencies and
media would back off after Evans humiliated both of them in a 2015 criminal trial, where he faced 12 felony counts for a 2013 arrest of a gang member after a foot chase. The case was gener- ated from an investigation by COPA’s predecessor, IPRA.
Evans’ defense was based on the claim that the allegations were trumped up against him by IPRA investigators, who he alleged illegally released documents to the media. The media, Evans’ defense team argued, then falsely portrayed the signif- icance of these documents in their “bombshell” reports. Evans was acquitted of all charges.
Evans has filed suit against IPRA and media personnel over the case.
But in January, Evans learned that COPA has reopened an in- vestigation against him for a 1996 shooting in which the offend- er, Leonard Logan, attacked Evans in the stairwell of a housing project and attempted to disarm Evans twice. Evans shot Logan twice.
While out on bond for this case, Logan was arrested for shooting two people, one fatally. Evans took part in that arrest. Logan was convicted and sentenced to 45 years. Logan filed a complaint against Evans, but it was not sustained.
Now Logan, with the help of a publication called Injustice Watch, cofounded by former Northwestern University Law pro- fessor Rob Warden, is spinning a narrative that Logan was not the offender in the double shooting. He is being represented by attorneys from the law firm Loevy and Loevy, which specializes in supposed “wrongful convictions.”
Though cleared of any wrongdoing in the incident in which Evans shot Logan after Logan attacked and attempted to dis- arm Evans, Injustice Watch attempts to recast the incident against Evans:
According to Evans’ version of events, Logan had grabbed for Evans’ gun, so Evans punched him, recovered his gun and shot him. But Logan contended that Evans had falsely arrested him and shot him without provocation. He filed a complaint over the incident and a federal lawsuit against Evans, which were both dismissed. But so were the assault charges against Logan.
Logan contends Evans had been harassing him for months be- fore the shooting and that his arrest for the gas station shooting was part of a “vendetta” Evans had against him. Logan’s mother, Ezzie, said in a sworn affidavit that Evans was known around Stateway Gardens for harassing kids and had targeted her son on several occasions, telling her at one point, “I’m going to get your son, too.”
So Evans just went to work one day and decided to shoot a guy for no reason? Then Evans framed him for a murder? Such ludicrous narratives are commonplace in the wrongful convic- tion industry.
And the assault charges that were dropped against Logan for attacking Evans is somehow suspicious? Hardly. Injustice Watch ignores the obvious. The state proceeded with the higher mur- der charges and dropped the lesser ones, a routine legal strate- gy by prosecutors.
Injustice Watch then goes on to point out the history of com- plaints against Evans, ignoring the history of misconduct alle- gations emerging at Northwestern University at the same time Warden was working there, a body of evidence pointing to false charges made against police officers in one case after another.
This body of evidence has also long been ignored by COPA and the Chicago Police Board, despite repeated attempts by the FOP to bring it before both bodies.
Despite this evidence, COPA appears all too willing to dig up two-decades-old cases against the police.
The Logan case is shaping up to be another example of how “media” like Injustice Watch and the City’s civilian oversight agents team up to go after cops, just as there is so much evi- dence to show that they did against Evans in his criminal trial in 2015.
And those aren’t the only examples. Recently, COPA ruled a fatal shooting by Officer Robert Rialmo unjustified. In that case, too, the FOP discovered that the agency hid the opinion of its own expert, who ruled that the shooting was justified.
Chicago Tribune reporter Dan Hinkel also ignored the evi- dence in every single story he wrote about the case.
The Chicago Police Board also made no mention of the cov- er-up and fired Rialmo in October.
FOP attorneys have filed a lawsuit demanding that Rialmo get his job back.
The Logan case is compelling not as a wrongful conviction, but as an example of the degree to which the City’s many kanga- roo courts, from COPA to the Chicago Police Board, are nothing more than police witch hunts.
MARTIN PREIB
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