News About Evanston Police Department

After law enforcement deployed chemical ammunition, including pepper spray, and arrested a Northwestern student at a Saturday protest, local activist organization Evanston Fight for Black Lives issued a statement Monday condemning police violence and the tactics used by Evanston Police Department and Illinois crowd control. The group, which said it has not yet been in contact with organizers from NU Community Not Cops, shares a similar goal: police abolition.…

Evanston Police Chief Demitrous  Cook spoke in support at a Nov. 2 City meeting of his decision to bring in outside assistance to help quell a demonstration in downtown Evanston on Halloween Night, Oct. 31, in which officers had to use pepper spray to subdue some protesters. Responding to questions at the Human Services Committee meeting, Chief Cook said police turned to the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System (NIPAS) mobile…

The Evanston Police Department has phased out its stop and frisk policy, Evanston Police Cmdr. Brian Henry said, but police accountability advocates said EPD’s data shows racial disparities in pat downs. In 2013, former police chief Richard Eddington announced the expansion of stop-and-frisk tactics to address gun violence, the Daily reported. Henry said the practice is no longer used under chief Demitrous Cook, who was sworn in January 2019. However,…

VANSTON, IL — One of the dozens of men whose images, birthdays and addresses were publicly posted to a personal social media account of Evanston Police Chief Demitrous Cook filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Sunday against the city, the police department and the chief, in both his personal and official capacity. Kevin Logan’s personal information was annotated with handwritten notes saying, “Pending” and “HIV” in screenshots of the…

A May 27 statement from the Citizens’ Network of Protection — a group dedicated to police reform and civilian oversight — echoed these concerns. The statement claimed the demographic data is incorrect and the organization is hoping to receive the correct numbers for black, white, Hispanic, Asian and other non-white arrests, citations and street stops.

Evanston aldermen on Monday agreed to pay a former Northwestern University doctoral student, Lawrence Crosby, $1.25 million to settle a lawsuit filed against the city and four police officers after he was arrested for allegedly stealing his own car.

A former detective with the Evanston Police has been accused of joining the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration so he could protect a Puerto Rico-based drug organization responsible for numerous killings and other violence.

Evanston police quietly maintained an unreleased internal policy regarding the use of drones, according to a document obtained by Lucy Parsons Labs. The document [PDF], entitled “Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Operations” and dated July 25, 2018, lays out departmental guidelines for the use of drones. It is included in the department’s standard policy manual. The Evanston Police Department’s policy was created without public knowledge or debate in a community…

Emails obtained by Lucy Parsons Labs reveal that Geofeedia touted social media surveillance of middle and high school students by its suburban Chicago police customers in an effort to sell their services to Evanston police. Geofeedia provides law enforcement with tools to monitor social media use by mapping location and other data. It has received funding from the investment arm of the CIA, In-Q-Tel. The company became infamous after the American…

As incident after incident has shown, the issues of racial bias and excessive force that pervade police departments across the country also affect Evanston police — most recently illustrated in the detainment of 60-year-old black Evanston man Gregory Hall. Hall was injured after Evanston police misidentified him as an armed robbery suspect as he was leaving the Evanston Public Library south branch. As many Evanston community members continue to describe their distrust of…

While speaking with two officers in the kitchen, two other officers began to search the property. One opened the basement door with his gun drawn and shot Chance five times, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit states that officers did not tell the family what happened for more than an hour. And they did not drive Chance to an animal hospital, or let the family see or comfort their pet.

An Evanston 12-year-old was arrested, put in a police wagon and taken to the police station after officers saw him riding on the back of a bicycle that went through a red light, the boy’s father said.

Evanston police were seven times more likely to search a black driver than a white one in 2014, according to a recent study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The study, which analyzed traffic stops from 132 police agencies across 16 states, found that Evanston police consistently had the highest black to white search ratio of any other department. Evanston police in 2009 were also roughly 11 times…

Two Evanston police officers are on leave and the department has launched an internal investigation after a 24-year-old African-American man was arrested Sunday while collecting signatures to run for local public office, according to Evanston Police Cmdr. Joseph Dugan.