Plaintiff:
Rayshawn Cherry
Incident date:
09/22/2008
Location:
5101 S. Wentworth Ave.
Allegations:
In July 2008, an SUV struck a 78-year-old woman as the driver and two accomplices attempted to escape the scene of a burglary they had committed. One of the passengers was caught. Cherry was a known associate of one of the passengers, and police detained and interrogated Cherry to ask questions about the hit-and-run homicide, of which he knew nothing. Two months later, Cherry was falsely arrested as an accomplice to an unrelated armed robbery. When taken in for questioning to the CPD Precinct, officers and two prosecutors interrogated Cherry about the hit-and-run case, not the armed robbery for which he had just been arrested. Still unable to provide them with information, he was taken into a lineup, and later told that he was identified by the victims of the robbery. The officers then asked Cherry if there was anything he would like to tell them now that he had been “identified.” Still unable to tell the officers anything, Cherry was charged with armed robbery, burglary, unlawful restraint and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and was held in the Cook County Department of Corrections until he posted bail a year later. As Cherry awaited trial, the state continued to use the armed robbery charge as a bargaining chip to pressure him into testifying about the homicide. Cherry was found not guilty in December 2010.