Shapearl Wells (right) stands with Jamie Kalven (center) and reporter Heather Cherone (left) to discuss the continued withholding of the full Office of the Inspector General Report into her son Courtney’s death in 2016.
A Cicero woman is calling on Chicago officials to release the full probe completed by the city’s inspector general into how the Chicago Police Department investigated the 2016 murder of her 22-year-old son.
Courtney Copeland died while handcuffed after asking police officers for help after being shot. More than seven years after Copeland’s death, no one has been charged with his murder, and his mother, Shapearl Wells, is left with few answers.
“It’s very painful,” Wells said. “Seven years, and we still don’t have the answers. We still don’t know what happened to my son. Seven years, I’m still fighting, trying to find the truth.”
Wells said she remains determined to solve her son’s murder and will not stop demanding answers from the Chicago Police Department, which she said botched not only its response to Copeland’s plea for medical assistance but also the investigation into his murder.