The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office said Monday It was officially announced A list of 174 current and former law enforcement officials who will not be called to testify in court hearings.
Cook County’s “Do Not Call” list is mostly for officers whose alleged misconduct seriously undermines their credibility and could be held accountable to prosecutors on the witness stand. The most — 120 — are members of the Chicago Police Department.
Several Chicago officers, including Jason VanDyke, Ronald Watts and Jeffrey Krieve, have also faced criminal charges.
“The culture of allowing anonymous law enforcement officers to testify in court has made Cook County the wrongful crime capital of the nation,” State’s Attorney Kim Fox said in a statement. “Releasing our ‘do not call list’ and revising our internal policies regarding witness disclosures are important steps to improving the Office’s prosecutorial integrity and rebuilding the public’s trust in our criminal justice system.”
The list is the result of two landmark United States Supreme Court cases that require prosecutors to turn over all evidence to criminal defendants.
The list, which has tripled since last February, is part of a lawsuit in which the state attorney’s office said 66 officers will not be called to testify in court filings, but it did not say when those officers were added to the list.
The list was released Monday, but it points to dozens of officers released earlier this year from the state’s attorney. Meanwhile, since March 1, at least 19 more officers — again mostly from the Chicago Police Department — have been deemed too dangerous to call witnesses.
Among those newly added officers are Robert Bakker, a CPD officer with ties to the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, and Reynaldo Guevara, a former CPD detective with multiple false convictions. Both were added to the list on May 25, 2023.
Another recent addition to the list is a CPD officer near West who was shot in the arm while off duty on May 31. The officer told police he was driving down an alley in the 2200 block of West Maypole when shots were fired.
But last month, the Office of Civilian Police Accountability said, “After reviewing third-party video and an internal review, it is unclear and not yet confirmed that the officer was fired in the first place.”
The officer was placed on the “do not call” list a day after the shooting.