How To Solve Two Stubborn Murder Cases In One Night, Chicago PD–Style

December 30, 2017 11:44 AM

How To Solve Two Stubborn Murder Cases In One Night, Chicago PD–Style The two murders were proving difficult to close — until Detective Reynaldo Guevara, who has been accused of framing at least 51 people, showed up for duty. Here’s how, over the course of one night, with questionable evidence, two men who say they did nothing wrong ended up charged with murder.
posted by supercrayon (14 comments total)

I hope this isn’t a derail but I’m reading the article and I’ve come across a phrase that I’ve seen many times before and I don’t understand what it is characterizing.

Like Guevara, Mingey was a product of the city’s Northwest Side. He was a cop’s cop. Mingey had helped Guevara out with loans, in violation of police policy. And he had signed off on reports in at least five of the 12 cases that Guevara and Halvorsen worked that were later overturned.

What does it mean to be a “cop’s cop”, or any other version of this phrase?
posted by gucci mane at 12:07 PM on December 30, 2017

What does it mean to be a “cop’s cop”, or any other version of this phrase?

This phrase and its variations ("man's man," etc.) mean that the person is the type of person that other people in that category think they should be like. A man's man isn't just a man, he's a Manly Man who Manly does Manly Things in a Manly Manner. A cop's cop isn't just a cop, he's every cliche of a good police officer (from the perspective of other police officers, not regular citzens) embodied in one mustachioed package. If you ask a cop what a cop should be like, they'll cite the "cop's cop."

Another part of it is that the person is admired by others of their own type but may be "unappreciated" by the public at large. For example, some comedians are known as "comedians' comedians," who are beloved by other standups but not particularly successful with the general public.

Again, a "cop's cop" would probably not be widely admired by the public at large but would (theoretically) hold the esteem of his/her comrades, for "doing it right."
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 12:10 PM on December 30, 2017 [17 favorites]

Or a dirty cop that has not been exposed.
posted by notreally at 12:15 PM on December 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

Okay cool, I spent the rest of the article being under the impression that it meant he was a higher up cop that helped the lower level cops do sketchy things, but then that didn’t make sense with other times I’ve seen the phrase (most recently I’ve seen “lawyer’s lawyer”.)
posted by gucci mane at 12:29 PM on December 30, 2017

Also the whole “he was a product of the city’s Northwest side” threw me off too, because I thought it was trying to reference a particularly bad neighborhood, but it didn’t really give a description other than that he was a cop’s cop, as if that has something to do with the neighborhood he grew up in.
posted by gucci mane at 12:31 PM on December 30, 2017

The end of this article is bizarre, but surprisingly effective.
posted by Coventry at 12:48 PM on December 30, 2017

NW Chicago is working class Polish or Irish, I think.
posted by Bee'sWing at 12:52 PM on December 30, 2017 [1 favorite]

Northwest Chicago is not intended to allude to a bad neighborhood. A lot of city cops live out there, and the neighborhoods tend to be pretty white and pretty racist. Basically the article is referring to the kind of cops who, if they weren't required to live in city for their job, would live in the suburbs to get away from those they see as undesirable. So they create an enclave as far out as they can that's still in the city limits: neighborhoods like Jefferson Park, Norwood Park, etc. It's fair that someone outside of Chicago wouldn't get that reference, but anyone from here immediately would.

Jefferson Park, to give an example, is fighting (maybe has successfully fought?) a mixed-income housing development with all the usual coded NIMBY language about "quality of life" and property values and crime concerns that are really about race.
posted by misskaz at 1:35 PM on December 30, 2017 [13 favorites]

Yeah Chicago has two versions of Copland. The far Northwest cluster and Mount Greenwood. If you want to know where the white cops live look at the areas that had more votes for Trump.

Also, people should be immediately suspicious when Chicago cops solve crimes. It's really not something they seem terribly motivated to do.
posted by srboisvert at 2:37 PM on December 30, 2017 [3 favorites]

I genuinely can't understand how someone can read one article like this - much less the dozens per year that are published - and continue to believe that any aspect of the criminal justice system in America is worth keeping. Much less, how they can vote for city officials who support the police. That having the policemen's union sponsorship is considered a good thing, even in a historically liberal and pro-labor city like Chicago, is shocking.
posted by eotvos at 7:37 PM on December 30, 2017 [6 favorites]

Northwest Chicago is not intended to allude to a bad neighborhood. A lot of city cops live out there, and the neighborhoods tend to be pretty white and pretty racist.

Are you sure that’s how it’s being used here? The article describes the Northwest Side as being “working-class Latino”. Guevara’s name certainly seems to be of Latino origin.
posted by mr_roboto at 8:15 PM on December 30, 2017

"Also, people should be immediately suspicious when Chicago cops solve crimes. It's really not something they seem terribly motivated to do."

Illinois had to quit the death penalty when they exonerated more people (13) on Death Row than they executed (12) since 1972, largely thanks to corrupt Chicago cops framing people.

"Also the whole “he was a product of the city’s Northwest side” threw me off too, because I thought it was trying to reference a particularly bad neighborhood"

That's where you go when you want to move to the white suburbs but your city contract requires you to live within Chicago. There are plenty of great neighborhoods on the NW side and plenty of awesome people who live in them and plenty of diversity, but as a generalization, what they're trying to get across is, "This dude would like to live in the white WASP Mecca of Lake Forest but he can't afford it and also his city contract requires him to live w/in city limits, so, yo, he's racist."

" Basically the article is referring to the kind of cops who, if they weren't required to live in city for their job, would live in the suburbs to get away from those they see as undesirable."

Yep, that.

Are you sure that’s how it’s being used here? The article describes the Northwest Side as being “working-class Latino”. Guevara’s name certainly seems to be of Latino origin.

Yes. There are white Latinos and Latino-Latinos, this dude is white Latino. Belmont-Cragin, where the Area 5 HQ is, is 20-30% Latino on this map. Area 5 covers Hermosa -- which I'm sure is the "working class Latino neighborhood" -- which is fairly Hispanic, but not like SUPER Hispanic. And being from the "Northwest Side," he's from those deep blue places on the upper left corner of that map (i.e., super-white), that shade into Oak Park ("broad lawns and narrow minds," per Hemmingway) and Des Plaines near O'Hare.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:16 PM on December 30, 2017 [4 favorites]

Sorry, I didn’t intend to mean that NW Chicago was bad by any means, I just wasn’t understanding what it was that they were pointing out, and my not understanding the meaning of “cop’s cop” further added to the confusion. I was trying to read for clues in the text and I got jumbled up! Glad to have some more information though, it makes a lot of sense to me now.
posted by gucci mane at 10:23 PM on December 30, 2017

Well that def continues to validate my vague impression that the actual workings of gangs can't really be distinguished from how cops claim they do - and specifically that cops almost certainly allege a higher level of coordination and cohesion than exists because it allows them to advance otherwise insane theories.

Ugh, CPD.

(In re: neighborhoods, it is also important to remember we're talking about 22 years ago in one of the areas of Chicago that has probably seen the most gentrification.)
posted by PMdixon at 5:17 AM on December 31, 2017 [2 favorites]