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Vol. 79/No. 38 October 26, 2015
‘Jail Chicago cops who
killed my son and lied!’
BY JOHN HAWKINS
CHICAGO — “I want the cops who killed my son Darius to be indicted for
murder and those who helped cover it up to lose their jobs,” declared
Gloria Pinex at a news conference outside the 7th District police
station here Sept. 28. “I always knew they were lying, but I never knew
the lengths they had gone to to cover it up.”
Pinex was responding to the results of an investigation launched in the
wake of a federal wrongful death suit she had filed against the police
and the city of Chicago. In March a jury ruled in favor of officers
Gildardo Sierra and Raoul Mosqueda. But in light of the cops’ possible
false testimony and misconduct on the part of the city’s attorney that
surfaced during the trial, Judge Edmond Chang ordered the inquiry.
On Jan. 7, 2011, Sierra and Mosqueda fired at least eight bullets into
the car Pinex was driving, killing him and injuring passenger Matthew
Colyer. At the time they told police investigators they stopped the car
because it matched the description on a police radio dispatch of the
vehicle driven by a suspect in a shooting earlier that night. They
continued to tell that story for the next four years.
But in court the tale began to unravel.
It came out that the two cops did not hear the dispatch as they claimed,
because it aired over a different police radio zone, calling into
question their justification for stopping the car, and even more
approaching it with guns drawn.
Court records also revealed that the city’s lead attorney, Jordan Marsh,
knew about this discrepancy at least a week before the trial began but
did not inform Pinex’s attorney of this.
The cover-up appears to have begun minutes after Sgt. Jeffrey Siwek, the
two cops’ superior, arrived on the scene. Siwek called an emergency
dispatcher over his police radio to ask if the car Pinex was driving was
wanted. After a brief exchange, the two moved the conversation off an
official radio frequency, which is monitored and recorded, onto private
cellular phones.
“If they had pulled these two cops off the streets after Darius was
killed, Flint Farmer would be alive today,” Pinex told the press. Six
months after gunning down her son, Sierra killed Farmer, firing three
bullets into his back as he lay on the ground.
Among those joining Pinex at the news conference were Darius Pinex’s
grandmother Gloria Johnson and brother Demarlon Simpkins; Wallace
Bradley, a leader in the fight to jail cop John Burge, infamous for
torture; Panzy Edwards, mother of Dakota Bright, killed by Chicago cops
Nov. 8, 2012; and Freddy McGhee, father of Freddy Wilson, killed by
police in 2007.
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