Police Commander Accused Of Brutality Has Many Supporters
(CBS) – Chicago Police Cmdr. Glenn Evans left a brief court appearance Thursday, flanked by friends and supporters.
He seems to have a lot of them in the Park Manor neighborhood, in the South Side's 3rd Police District. He used to be commander there.
Some folks want him back.
"When I think about Cmdr. Evans, I think about his compassion. I think about his commitment," Evans supporter Cece Edwards says.
"Never (did) I see him lose his cool. He's a very soft-spoken person," Lorraine Smith says.
They're talking about a veteran cop who's nonetheless been the target of dozens of complaints of excessive force over the years.
He'll go to trial facing nine new felony charges. Prosecutors say Evans shoved his gun down a suspect's throat, stun-gunned his groin and threatened to kill him.
"What they don't know is that this man uses bullying and intimidating tactics," the alleged brutality victim's attorney, Antonio Romanucci, said of Evans' supporters. "Glenn Evans, when you look at his record, is really the modern-day, or the current, Jon Burge."
But one Park Manor resident, a retired Chicago Police officer, thinks he understands what's happening here.
"It's only when you stop a wrongdoer from doing what he's doing, he'll do anything in his power to bring you down," Myrten Byrd says.
Evans is working a desk job, pending the outcome of his trial.
The commander's defense attorneys appear determined to prove that the investigators for the Independent Police Review Authority may have been biased. They say the results of the lab test on Evans' gun should not have been leaked.
That test reportedly showed DNA from the alleged victim on the barrel of the weapon.
