Cook County’s largest mass exoneration tosses 44 convictions tied to a corrupt cop
The number of vacated convictions tied to former Chicago Police Sgt. Ronald Watts is now 213.
The number of vacated convictions tied to former Chicago Police Sgt. Ronald Watts is now 213.
A personnel hemorrhage since late 2020 has cut the size of Chicago’s Law Department by a quarter, a WBEZ analysis of city data finds.
A social worker responding to 911 calls says she hasn’t yet needed a cop’s presence but she can imagine situations in which she would.
But the state’s attorney won’t say how these cases, all tied to ex-Sgt. Ronald Watts, differ from 169 convictions already thrown out.
Detectives in the north suburb who got a 15-year-old to confess to a shooting he didn’t commit may yet face discipline, Mayor Ann B. Taylor announced Monday night.
The Chicago officer was filmed swinging at Miracle Boyd, 18, during a 2020 protest against a Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park.
In 2019, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability recommended three dismissals. Last year it recommended 59.
Eric Rinehart, the state’s attorney of Lake County, Ill., said officers misled a 15-year-old to extract a confession last week.
Cook County judges have tossed 150 cases tied to ex-Sgt. Ronald Watts. But Kim Foxx’s office is fighting efforts to vacate some others.
The former Chicago police officer will have served just over three years for the murder. Experts weigh in on calls for the feds to step in.