Bonus Episode - Somebody Podcast

Three years after the release of the “Somebody” podcast, Chicago continues to block the full release of the inspector general report investigating the police response to Courtney Copeland’s murder. In this update episode, Shapearl Wells discusses the summary findings of the report that were publicly shared while she presses on for full transparency.

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Jamie Kalven: It’s inconceivable CPD’s new leader was unaware of disgraced ex-Sgt. Ronald Watts’ activities

Harold Ickes Homes, 2008. Photo: David Schalliol

In his comments after Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson announced his appointment as interim police superintendent, Fred Waller described himself as “old school.” Presumably, this was meant to reassure the department’s rank and file and city residents concerned about crime. In this fraught moment, as summer approaches, it’s easy to imagine that Johnson was drawn to Waller as a calming, seasoned presence able to address challenges in the days ahead, while conveying to officers under his command that he has their back.

In the context of the long struggle to advance meaningful police reform, however, “old school” has other, more disturbing connotations associated with the “code of silence” within the department.

Often used loosely to characterize police culture, the term “code of silence” is at once imprecise and inevitable. So it’s important to be clear: I intend it to refer to a set of tools, central to the operation of the department, that are deployed in response to incidents of misconduct, criminality, errors of judgment and other regrettable events. These tools are used to impose a narrative solution rather than to engage the problem at hand. This is less a matter of discreet “cover-ups” than the ongoing operation of narrative machinery by which the institution seeks to protect itself from scrutiny and accountability.

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Revisit Jamie’s Code of Silence reporting on Watts

You Didn't See Nothin Named One of Vulture's "Best Podcasts of 2023"

There’s a mythical quality to the premise of You Didn’t See Nothin. The injustice of a horrible crime leads a man to investigative journalism, but he becomes disenchanted and ultimately leaves the profession altogether due to the force of its constraints. Years later, he returns to that instigating story, looking to settle a spiritual score. The individual in question is Chicago writer and designer Yohance Lacour, and the story he revisits is a hate crime that took place in the late ’90s: a young Black boy, Lenard Clark, beaten into a coma by a gang of white teenagers for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. You Didn’t See Nothin is a fluid amalgam of things — memoir, journalism, social history — but above all, it’s a spirited litigation of a systemic failure. It’s an outstanding listen. Lacour is a fantastic writer and an even better narrator.

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‘You Didn’t See Nothin’ Podcast Takes A Closer Look At The Lenard Clark Case And Its Impact On A Fractured City

Photo by Bill Healy

Twenty-six years ago this week, a 13-year-old Bronzeville boy looking to put air in his bicycle tire became the victim of a vicious, racist attack that haunted his Chicago neighborhood for years.

“You Didn’t See Nothin” is a seven-part podcast that dives into the case of Lenard Clark. Produced by USG and the Invisible Institute, the podcast is narrated by journalist Yohance Lacour, who takes a look back at life as a young man during that tumultuous time.

At the time, Lacour, who grew up in Hyde Park, was a 23-year-old budding journalist and student at the University of Illinois Chicago living at home with his father and selling weed to keep money in his pockets. Once the business started to grow, he left school behind, he said. That decision set him on a path that led to a multi-year prison sentence.

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Release Full Watchdog Probe of My Son’s 2016 Death Outside Police Station, Mom Demands

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.

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