Indicted cop leader drew 36 complaints in 8 years
From January 2006 through July 2014 — a period in which Evans was promoted to lieutenant and then named one of only 22 district commanders — he amassed 36 complaints in all. Combined with previously released records, Evans has been the subject of at least a combined 50 complaints since 2001.
Evans was never disciplined as a result of any of those complaints except for a two-day suspension, records show, but more recent complaints remain under investigation.
According to a Tribune analysis of the records since 2006, Evans had far more complaints than anyone else of his rank and topped all but 34 officers for the entire 12,000-strong department. In fact, he continued to pile up complaints — nine in all — even after he was promoted by Superintendent Garry McCarthy to commander of the South Side's Grand Crossing police district in August 2012...
...Evans' attorney, Laura Morask, defended his record, saying the complaints amounted to a "small fraction" of the approximately 3,000 arrests she said he has made in his career.
"I don't think it speaks to anything," Morask said, noting how Evans has continued to make arrests even as a commander. "No one likes being arrested."
But last month, Cook County prosecutors alleged that Evans went too far in an abandoned house in the Park Manor neighborhood. He was criminally charged on allegations he shoved his service weapon down a man's throat, pressed a Taser against his groin and threatened to kill him early last year. The next day, the alleged victim, Rickey Williams, filed a complaint against Evans, one of the 36 people to do so since 2006, records show....
