The Cook County state’s attorney’s office on Monday made public a list of 174 current and former law enforcement officers who will not be called to testify in court proceedings.
Cook County’s “Do Not Call” list is largely made up of officers whose alleged misconduct has so badly hampered their credibility that they’d be a liability for prosecutors on the witness stand. A heavy majority — 120 — are members of the Chicago Police Department.
Several of the Chicago officers, including Jason Van Dyke, Ronald Watts and Jeffrey Kriv, have faced criminal charges themselves.
“The culture that allowed disreputable law enforcement officers to testify in court propelled Cook County’s reputation as the wrongful conviction capital of the country,” State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said in a statement. “Releasing our ‘Do Not Call List’ and updating our internal policy regarding witness disclosure are necessary steps to improve the office’s prosecutorial integrity and help rebuild public trust in our criminal justice system.”
The list is a byproduct of two landmark U.S. Supreme Court cases that mandate prosecutors turn over all evidence, both inculpatory and exculpatory, to criminal defendants.
The list has nearly tripled in size since last February when, as part of a lawsuit, the state’s attorney’s office said in court filings that 66 officers would not be called to testify, but it was not disclosed when those officers were added to the list.
The list made public Monday, however, suggests that dozens of officers were omitted from the state’s attorney’s disclosure earlier this year. Meanwhile, since March 1, at least more 19 officers — again mostly from the Chicago Police Department — were determined to be too risky to call as witnesses.
Among those newly added officers are Robert Bakker, a CPD officer with ties to the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, and Reynaldo Guevara, a former CPD detective linked to dozens of bogus felony convictions. Both were added to the list May 25, 2023.
Another notable recent addition to the list is a CPD officer who was shot in the arm May 31 while off-duty on the Near West Side. The officer told police that he was fired upon while driving through an alley in the 2200 block of West Maypole.
Last month, though, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability said that “After review of third-party video and internal assessment, it is unclear and has not yet been determined that the officer was fired upon first.”
The officer was placed on the “Do Not Call” list one day after the shooting.
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