Previously, on Somebody…

ALISON: Did the people you worked with know that you guys were romantically involved?

ALMA: No.

MARILYN: A lot of people were very, very upset with her. She lives in a really rough neighborhood.

ALMA: We heard two gunshots and a car drive off.

AUNT KIM: You want to know what you heard, did you see anybody running, how many shots? None of that stuff was asked?

ALMA: Like, down the street from where I live, this guy like, you know, he’s a gang member. ….He has really long hair, like down past his waist. 

JUNE: They had said there were some Hispanic guys running around in that neighborhood…... So, they had claimed there was a possibility that maybe they had confused him for somebody else. So, I had to follow that lead as well. 

SHAPEARL: I believe that somebody knows something. Somebody saw something. And it just takes a lot of courage from somebody to tell what they saw.

My name is Shapearl Wells. This is the story of my son Courtney, a young black man in a fancy car, who wound up with a bullet in his back in front of a Chicago police station. 

And it’s the story of my search for the truth.

This is Somebody.

THEME: “Everybody’s Something” by Chance the Rapper

We buried Courtney at this cemetery called Burr Oak. We have a family plot there. 

SHAPEARL: As you can see, these are some of the graves. 

Burr Oak was originally the only cemetery where black people could be buried in Illinois. It’s also the cemetery where Emmett Till is buried. It’s where my grandma is buried, too. 

And this is where Brent and I buried our two angel babies, a set of twins, in 1999. 

Every time I come here, it’s in disrepair. The ground itself is crumbling. And there is weeds everywhere. The grass is high, there’s trash.  

SHAPEARL: You can’t be sad because you so doggone angry cuz the way it looks.

I’ve had it out a few times with the groundskeepers. 

GROUNDSKEEPER: You didn’t even have this much grass when you came in last time. Sometime we have to redo it again…have some dry dirt...

They’re nice guys, but I have to keep it real with them about the conditions of the cemetery. It’s horrible. 

SHAPEARL:  Look at this! Lookie Lookie Lookie. Well, it’s, look at this!

GROUNDSKEEPER: I can’t help that ma’am.

SHAPEARL: Look at this! Look at this! Lookie, lookie, lookie.

GROUNDSKEEPER: Well, I’m sorry. That’s the condition of…

SHAPEARL: No, no, no. 

You probably know by now, I’m not afraid of confrontation. 

SHAPEARL: Nobody should have to go here and look and be embarrassed when you come to a grave site to grieve. It’s already a difficult situation.

GROUNDSKEEPER: Look at here. Today you want to chop my head off. But tomorrow, you’re gonna be hugging me. 

SHAPEARL: I’m sorry but y’all know y’all got me a little heated. I’m a little heated. When it comes to my baby, I get a little heated. It’s personal. 

It had almost been two years since Courtney died. Two years.

I found out there was a deadline, a statute of limitations, for me to sue the city for how they treated my son. So, I got some new lawyers to take the case to court. 

They argued that police caused delays by taking Courtney into custody and handcuffing him. And that they conspired with the Fire Department to prepare misleading reports to cover up their actions.

I wanted justice. And I wanted those officers on the record. I wanted them to be forced to testify. And I wanted the city to see that treating a young black man as a criminal instead of a victim has consequences. 

There was one other thing that I needed to do on his second anniversary. I was gonna hold a protest outside the police station. We were gonna go there and light candles with Courtney’s friends and our whole family. 

SHAPEARL: I'm just gonna do a short Facebook Live. It's kind of a difficult moment for me right now. I tried to do this last year but I just wasn't strong enough to do it. But I feel that his spirit will be there so that he would know that he's not alone right now. And I hope that you can come out and just light a candle for him. God bless.

I was gonna do all of this in the middle of the night. At the exact same time as Courtney pulled up to the station and called 9-1-1, trying to get help. 

I was gonna drive the BMW that Courtney drove...from my house in Cicero...to Belmont Cragin. Just like Courtney did. I was gonna drive down Alma’s street, cut through the alley, pull up by the corner of the church. Just like Courtney did. 

It was like for me, I couldn’t be there when it happened. I always felt like some type of guilt for not being there. So, for me I had to take that journey with him. So that that way he knows that his mom was there. 

Leading up to the anniversary… Courtney’s friends started posting old videos and tributes. 

And so my timeline was flooded with memories of Courtney. There were tons of photos of Courtney in his car, BeBe. 

Oh my god Bebe. I think that I want to say that she’s my fourth child even though she’s a vehicle. 

Over the last two years…Bebe had been through a lot. My mom had an accident in Bebe. 

ALISON: How did it get in an accident? 

SHAPEARL: She was trying to change lanes. And so when she changed lanes she didn't see the other car and so they rammed right into the car. And when she told me that she crashed the car, I hung up on her. I didn't ask was she was OK because I figured she ok because she calling me, but I couldn't talk.

I didn’t leave the bed for three days.

SHAPEARL: I can’t let this car go. As much as I want to let it go, I can't. It was like State Farm was like well we're gonna sell it off for parts and part of me I felt like they're just like taking my son and just selling my son off for parts. And I was like no I need the car back.

So I had found two mechanics. One to do the interior work. And then one to do the body work of the vehicle. And it was a lot of money to get her restored.

But once she was good as new, I got a new license plate for BeBe. Court34.  Now we were ready to take this drive.

ALISON: While Shapearl was getting ready for the second anniversary of Courtney’s death, we were busy reporting. Turns out, Courtney wasn’t the only one to call 9-1-1 after he’d been shot. 

911: March 4th, 2016. One hour twenty three minutes and three seconds.

Someone else called 9-1-1 that night too. A neighbor. Who reported hearing shots fired. Police interviewed her about a month after Courtney died. 

911: Chicago Emergency Watchman, Hello.

ELENA: Yeah, I’m calling to….you know there was a shooting right here on Fullerton and Long.

911: Fullerton and Long? How many shots you hear Ma’am?

ELENA: Like two.

The neighbor’s name was Elena. She made that 9-1-1 call about six minutes after Courtney’s 911 call saying he’d been shot.

911: Okay. Anybody see who was doing the shooting?

ELENA: No but right now I was coming with my daughter from...we were together at my Ma’s house.

She said she heard two shots.

ELENA: And I was parking when a car passed by real fast. But right now through the alley there was like two gangsters.

911: Okay, so you heard two shots fired on the block? 

ELENA: Yeah

911: Okay I’ll send someone over to check it out.

ELENA: Okay Thanks.

911: You’re welcome. Bye-bye.

Shapearl wanted to talk to her, but her name and number were redacted from the police report. So none of us knew who she was.

But a few months later when we got the 911 call from the city, we found her number. It was buried in the metadata that came with the call recording. 

So we got in touch. 

At the time Courtney was shot, Elena lived in the neighborhood but she moved out because of the violence. These days, Elena and her family live in a garden apartment, on the West Side of the city, a couple miles from Belmont-Cragin. 

She and her husband Edgar have two kids. An 8-year-old girl who loves to jump into adult conversations and giggle...and a little baby boy.

ALISON: It looks like she's a good big sister. 

ELENA: Oh yeah.  

BILL: She seems like she's the boss though.  

ELENA: Yeah, she's the mom right now.  

ALISON: Do you work too?  

ELENA: I used to work but right now I'm not working because of the baby.  

ALISON: You've got your hands full.

We asked her about March 4, 2016. Here’s what she remembers. 

Elena was parking...a block from the church where Courtney would park. When she heard the two shots, she was helping her daughter out of the car. 

ELENA: I opened the door when I heard the shootings. Then I grabbed her and I put her inside into the car again. 

She called her husband Edgar on the phone to come out and wait for her in their alley. That’s when she saw Courtney’s car speed past her and turn towards the police station. 

BILL: Were you scared at any point? 

ELENA: Oh yeah I was scared. Plus I was with my daughter. She was scared too. She was crying.

BILL: Has that ever happened before to you? 

ELENA: No. Nothing.

After the shots, she froze. But, once she heard a police siren she decided it was safe enough to leave.

Elena and her daughter walked towards home, where Edgar was waiting for them. She saw a car speeding down the alley. Edgar saw it too. He was closer and had a better view.

ELENA: Then my husband said that he saw a car coming by to the alley. So then the car stopped where I live, by the alley. So then um the cars was staring at my husband. 

The window was down. Some guys inside. She described them as “gangsters.”

ELENA: My husband had his hands inside the jacket. And this is when the car passed and he was just looking at him. 

The car stopped. The guys inside stared at Edgar. He had his hands in his pockets and he didn’t want to move them because he was worried the guys might think it was a gun.

ALISON: Your husband had his hands in his pockets. 

ELENA: Yeah. 

ALISON: OK. So the guys thought that maybe he had something.

ELENA: Yeah, so he didn't took his hands out. I don't remember the car. He knows the car.

But Elena told police she thought she saw a Camry.

When we spoke to her, she said she doesn’t really know cars. But that her husband Edgar remembers the make and model.

Seemed like Edgar was the witness we really needed to talk to.

ALISON: Do you think your husband might remember what the men looked like? 

ELENA: Mmm I think he will.

Even though Edgar might have been able to identify these guys, police never even tried to speak with him.

ALISON: Did they... how long did they stay? 

ELENA: Like 20, 25 minutes. 

ALISON: Okay, and they didn't talk to Edgar? 

ELENA: No he was at work. 

ALISON: Okay, and they've never talked to him.  

ELENA: No. 

ALISON: Okay, alright.

When we told Elena we were working with Courtney’s mom, she wanted to know more.

BILL: Her name is Shapearl. Wells. And actually she's going to be out there, in front of the police station on Saturday, at the same time at 1:15. 

We told her about the vigil.

ELENA: This Saturday?  

BILL: This Saturday.  

ELENA: I will try to see if I can go. Right here on Grand?  

BILL: Yeah. Really? 

ELENA: I'm going to try to see if I can go. I can tell her what I saw and everything. 

BILL: She would I think be really...  

SHAPEARL: And where is the keys to the BMW?

ALISON: On March 4, 2018, Bill and I met Shapearl at her house. It was around midnight. She was wearing a red “Justice for Courtney Copeland” t-shirt, getting ready, serving coffee. Her family was starting to congregate. 

SHAPEARL: Jasmyne, grab the other baby. I think Brent already got one in the car. And Jasmyne, tell, oh and Brent lock up, ok. Lock up. 

Brent and their teenage daughters, Kayla and Jasmyne were bundling up two little babies. Faith and Sahara. Shapearl had started fostering them in the fall. Now, they were six months old.

Shapearl was getting their bottles ready.  

SHAPEARL: You got her pacifier? It's upstairs.

SHAPEARL: I don't know nothing about this car. I swear to god I don't. Oh there it is. 

ALISON: Shapearl and Bill took off together. I followed behind.

BILL: You said you feel like you have to do this? 

SHAPEARL: Yeah. 

BILL: Why? Why put yourself through it?

SHAPEARL: Because I feel like I've been hiding from it. 

And so Courtney comes and he does that final snapchat in front of our house. And then I guess that’s when he was talking to Alma and he decided to go over there. And it’s like what if you had just went to bed? You know. It’s just like that one second. That one second changed his whole life.  

ALISON: It was a pretty short drive that time of night. It only took about 15-20 minutes. 

SHAPEARL: This is Alma's block. So this is the exact way that he would come.

We went through the alley to where Courtney would park, just up by the church. Shapearl stopped the car. This is where we believe Courtney was shot. 

SHAPEARL: And so when they found glass, they found glass by the fire hydrant, which is a little bit of a ways.

SHAPEARL: I drove over to the police station. Pulled up in that left turn lane. I stopped the car. Right in the middle of the street. Just as Courtney had done two years earlier after getting shot. 

Across from the police station, friends and family had started gathering, lighting candles, setting up picture frames. It was cold, you could see your breath.

I didn’t get out of the car for several minutes. I just needed to sit there and think about my son. About what he must have been feeling there on the ground. I was just trying to put myself in his position and what he would have said to police in that moment.  

Police came out from the station. They started to surround me.

They asked me to move out of the road. And I just simply lost it. 

POLICE: Can you do me a favor?

SHAPEARL: I'm not moving. Leave me alone. I am not moving it. No! No! I am not moving it. I am staying right here. Leave me alone please. Leave me alone. 

POLICE: I'm just making sure you're ok. 

SHAPEARL: Why didn't y’all help my baby? 

POLICE:  Ma'am we did everything we could.   

SHAPEARL: No you didn’t. What did my son say? What did he say? 

POLICE: He said that he was shot.

SHAPEARL: What else did he say? Y’all were talking to him. Y’all were talking to him. He was talking to y’all on the camera. What did you say? What did he say? 

POLICE: He said he was shot and then the ambulance came here and started taking care of him.

SHAPEARL: This is when I realized who I was talking to: Sergeant Ronan. 

SHAPEARL: You was on the scene before the ambulance, Officer Ronan. I got the report when you came on the scene. You was on the scene before the ambulance got to him. All y'all was around him. Y’all was around him. 

He was the supervisor the night Courtney died. He was there that night. He was right there. In that very spot.

My family was holding me up. And I just wanted Sergeant Ronan to see my pain. 

To see...that my son’s life mattered to somebody.

SHAPEARL: He's sitting here begging y'all to help him and y'all didn't do nothing. Can you imagine a mama seeing that? Her son begging for help. 

RONAN: I can't even imagine no. 

SHAPEARL: That’s what happened. That's what happened to my baby. That's what happened to my child. That's what happened to him. My son is on the ground.

ALISON: Remember, this is the guy we looked into. Scores of complaints against him, like false arrest, planting evidence, using racist language. 

SHAPEARL: [crying]

RONAN: I wasn't in the ambulance trying to interfere or anything. 

SHAPEARL: Y'all did this to him. That’s what I’m saying. Y’all did that to him. Y’all did that to him.

AUNT KIM: Who handcuffed him?

SHAPEARL: My Aunt Kim--she asked Ronan who handcuffed Courtney.

RONAN: I don't know.  

SHAPEARL: Who went with him to the hospital? 

RONAN: That I don't recall. I, again, unfortunately this is two years ago. I mean I wish I had...better for you. But as far as who did this to your son, that's the detectives that follow up on that stuff. 

SHAPEARL: Nobody's working on it. Nobody's working on it. Nobody cares. He's just another black kid dead. Nobody cares. Y'all didn't do anything yet. How do ya'll expect to find killers if y'all don't want em? If y'all don't go look for em? And y'all tell me my son come up to y'all and say he's shot. And then he in handcuffs. How is that possible? 

RONAN:  Again ma'am I don't know. I don't know what happened before I got here. 

SHAPEARL: You was there. You was there. You saw my baby being handcuffed. 

RONAN: I saw him in the ambulance being worked on by CFD trying to help him. That's what I saw. 

It went on and on like this for several minutes. Right in the middle of the street. And then a white shirt, another officer, pulled Ronan away from the scene. And Ronan, he just left. He told all the other officers to leave as well. Things calmed down. 

And our protest...and the vigil...it went on.

ALISON: And then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Elena...the woman who called 911. She showed up. She was standing with her family at the edge of the park across from the police station.  

ALISON: How are you feeling? 

ELENA: Cold.  

ALISON: Cold, very cold. You brought your kids out here.  

ELENA: Yeah.

She was with her two kids and Edgar, her husband. Everyone was shivering.

We ran and got Shapearl. We wanted to make sure they had the chance to meet.

SHAPEARL: Your information is so vital to this. 

ELENA: I'm so sorry.

SHAPEARL: It's vital to our investigation you know because ain't nobody else gonna help us. So we have to try to fight this ourselves. And try to find out what happened.

ELENA: I understand.

SHAPEARL: When I saw Elena, I hugged her immediately. I was surprised she even showed up. For a mother she’d never even met. It was like okay, this is somebody that is giving me some information. She feels my pain and she’s connecting me on a mother to mother level.  

SHAPEARL: Yes, I appreciate you coming out because it means a lot. And I don't know if they had a chance to talk to you but... 

ELENA: You’re welcome. Yeah they already talked to me. 

SHAPEARL: Before I went back to the vigil, we hugged each other again. 

SHAPEARL: Thank you. 

ELENA: You're welcome.  

SHAPEARL: Thank you so much. 

SHAPEARL: God bless you.

ELENA: You're welcome.  

SHAPEARL: Thank you so much.  

ELENA: You're welcome.

ELENA: Thank you. You're welcome. 

ALISON: Bill and I stayed with Elena and Edgar to talk. We needed to know what Edgar could remember seeing that night. 

BILL: Would you mind, would you mind translating for me? 

ELENA: Yeah. 

ALISON: Could you tell us what you saw the night? 

ELENA: He tried to...he put on his jacket and he tried to go down the stairs as fast as he could. When he got down he saw that there was a car coming through the alley real fast. He didn’t stop and...

Here’s what Edgar remembered. When he got to the alley, he saw a car coming fast. So fast, he was afraid it was going to hit Elena and their daughter as they tried to cross. 

BILL: And did you write down the license plate number?

ELENA: He only knew the first three...Z40.

BILL: Z40?

ELENA: Yeah.

ALISON: What kind of car was it?

ELENA: A Grand Marquis.

ALISON: Grand Marquis? What color?

A Mercury Grand Marquis. With three guys inside.

BILL: And did the police ever talk to you?

ELENA: No, he never talked to ‘em. 

Police never talked to Edgar. Even though Elena told them he saw everything. 

BILL: And the police knew that your husband had seen something? 

ELENA: Um when they went to see me right here. I told them that he saw everything. 

BILL: But they didn't ask to see him? 

ELENA: No they didn't tell me to see him.

The alley was narrow. Just a few feet between Edgar and the driver. And the car window was rolled down, they were pretty much face to face. 

ALISON: And what did they look like? 

ELENA: Like my people. Like two Mexicans, he thinks, maybe.

And Edgar remembered something else. 

ALISON: Do you remember their hair? 

ELENA: One had large brown hair. Long hair.

One of the guys in the car had long hair.