May 12, 2020 • 28 mins
Having taken her investigation as far as she can, Shapearl moves on to an even bigger fight: making sure this never happens to anyone else’s child. She travels to Brazil to speak at a summit of mothers of murdered children and works to honor Courtney’s legacy and advocate for police reform in new ways.
A co-production of Topic Studios, The Intercept, the Invisible Institute, and iHeartRadio, in association with Tenderfoot TV.
We want to hear from you, email us at info@somebodypodcast.com or leave us a voicemail at 773-270-0121.
Host: Shapearl Wells
Producers: Alison Flowers and Bill Healy
Story Editor: Sarah Geis
Associate Producer: Ellen Glover
Executive Producer, Invisible Institute: Jamie Kalven
Executive Producers, Topic Studios: Maria Zuckerman, Christy Gressman and Leital Molad with Special Thanks to Lizzie Jacobs
Supervising Producer, The Intercept: Roger Hodge
Sound Design: Carl Scott and Bart Warshaw
Mix Engineer: Michael Raphael
Theme Song: “Everybody’s Something,” Chance the Rapper
Additional Reporting: Sam Stecklow, Annie Nguyen, Kahari Blackburn, Rajiv Sinclair, Henri Adams, Matilda Vojak, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Frances McDonald, Diana Akmakjian, Andrew Fan, Erisa Apantaku and Maddie Anderson.
Translation Support: Benny Hernandez Ocampo and Emma Perez
Fact Checking: Nawal Arjini
Original Music: Eric Butler and Nate Fox of the Social Experiment
Special thanks to Chaclyn Hunt, Maira Khwaja, Andrew Fan, Anwuli Anigbo, Trina Reynolds-Tyler, Sukari Stone, Erisa Apantaku, Craig Futterman, Rick Rowley, Yanilda Gonzalez, Forrest Stuart, Mariah Garcia, Sarah Kinter, Shannon Heffernan, Aaron Moselle, Alan Mills, Vidura Jong-Bahadur, Jason Schumer, Justin Williams and the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation Media Center, Matt Topic, Chris Rasmussen, Bennett Epstein, David Bralow and Julie Wolf. Elizabeth Van Brocklin's original story, "Scoop and Run: Where Cops Cars Double as Ambulances" first appeared in The Trace.
Theme song “Everybody’s Something” by Chancelor J. Bennett and DJ Ozone with compositions by Roger Karsher, Chuck Magione and James Yancey of Universal Music Publishing Group and Slum Village (R.L. Altman III, Titus Glover/Baatin, J Dilla); recording artist/performance by Chance the Rapper, appearing courtesy of himself and Chance the Rapper LLC.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What you are about to hear is the work of
the investigative journalism that explores one woman's search for answers
in her son's death. The views and opinions in this
podcast do not reflect those of I Heart Media. Yo.
So this is me. You know. My name is Corny Copeman,
and the reason I'm here is three time my parents.
(00:23):
Two is the biggest year of my life. You know.
The world is ours, you know, and we just gotta
go out there and get it. Let's get it. The
world is ours. We just have to get out there
and get it. Before Courtney died, I was too afraid
(00:49):
to travel far. I've always had the fear of flying.
But Courtney wanted us to travel more and see the
world with him. Courtney only got a taste of what's
out there. But since he's been gone, I've been all
over this world. It started when Courtney came to me
(01:11):
in a dream. He told me, Mom, I want you
to live. I want you to go to Dubai. And
I was like Dubai. When I woke up, I booked
the trip. Bye Mall me and the whole family went,
(01:37):
but Brazil. I went there on my own. Here I
am in the city of Salvador. I took this video
of people dancing outside my window late at night. I
was trying to sleep, but everyone was so happy. I
couldn't be mad. At I went for a gathering of
(02:05):
mothers of murdered children. There were about a hundred of
us there from all over, all of us fighting the
same struggle we're fighting in Chicago. In Salvador, we were
not far from the main square where they used to
auction off slaves. I was surprised that Brazil was so
(02:32):
afrocentric and so black, But then that's when I started
to understand the amount of slaves that were actually sent
to Brazil, and so it was a learning experience for me.
(02:52):
There were so many languages spoken at this summit. Mom
after mom we told our stories. There was one mom
whose child died of hunger and thirst in prison. There's
(03:13):
another mom whose son got shot by police during a massacre.
Then it was my turn. My heart rejoices to see
the unity that is in this place made you're going
(03:37):
to ship Oh my god. Uh, this reunion have brought
the pain of a lot of mothers. But my message
to the mothers today is I don't want you to
mourn any longer, but to rejoice in the life of
(03:58):
your children the because they are more than what happened
to them. I think about Courtney, I think about all
the mothers who told their testimony and stories. And there's
one thing that keeps coming to my head. I recalled
my aunt telling me after Courtney died, and I tell you,
(04:23):
they can never kill the lights. Never kill the light,
Courtney Copeland, Brazil. It restored my soul. All this time
(04:46):
I've been fighting so hard, I hadn't really had time
to mourn. I had put all of that on the
shelf because I had work to do. I was starting
to feel stronger. And it's a good thing, because when
I got back home, I needed all the strength I
(05:08):
could get. Our case against the City of Chicago was
looking like an uphill battle. The city's lawyers kept fighting
us in court. They kept denying everything, even the handcuffing,
and eventually my lawyer said we should dismiss the case,
(05:31):
that these cases were just too hard to win. I
was devastated. I was heartbroken. After the lawyers told us that,
Brent and I sat in an empty conference room at
(05:53):
the courthouse. We've been through lawyer, lawyer and it's they
just they just don't just don't want to mess with it.
I think it boils down to what CPD can get
away with legally, which for me is the reason why
I feel like so many laws and things have to
(06:15):
be changed so that that they don't have to they
don't have as much power as they do. Yeah, well,
the average person in America, you cannot win against CPD.
(06:38):
It didn't take long for the police lawyers to announce
their victory. They wrote on their website that the lawsuit
was unnecessary and they called the dismissal a win for
the City of Chicago. In the police department, the lawsuit
(07:01):
was over, and our investigation was too. We already gave
detectives all of our evidence, the names of suspects and witnesses.
But I was not gonna let my baby die for nothing.
(07:34):
What if what if the world was different, What if
Chicago was different? What if moms like me didn't have
to address their son and tuxedos put them in caskets
and lower them into the ground. Well, I'm on my
(08:01):
way to meet with the state rep right now to
propose Courtney's law. Me and my state rep. We've had
a couple of conversations now about all the reforms needed,
what my investigation has pulled together. Things that I want
(08:25):
to try to put into this law. Of Courtney's law
is one that police must provide life saving techniques because
they were first on the scene. I think that they
should have been Minister that I want Chicago police to
take people who have been shot immediately to the hospital.
(08:49):
And I want those police podcameras to work and whole
footage longer, and all the public records they should be
all in one place so victims family don't have to
get the runner down. So that's why I'm trying to
fight for other people. Corney is finished, that is done,
(09:10):
but if I can prevent other parents from experiencing this
type of pain, what I want for other parents is
that they know with certainty that their child died with
dignity and respect. I realized that in all of this
process that didn't happen for my son. I read the
(09:41):
story about a thing that police do in Philadelphia. They
call it scoop and run. Police pick up people who
have been shot and drive them to the hospital themselves.
They don't wait for an ambulance. Here's video of a
scooping run in progress. It sounds chaotic, but it's actually
(10:04):
police trying to help someone. This was the scariest moment
of my life. By far Ian Hurst. Herman's was around
the same age as Courtney when he was shot in
(10:25):
the middle of the night outside of party in Philly.
Two police officers arrived on the scene. They looked at
each other, gave a nod. One grab my arms and
one grab my legs. Um. The only issue was is
this guy going to bleed out or not? So from
the time that you got shot until the time that
(10:47):
you arrived to the hospital, approximately how many minutes was that?
It's hard to say. I would say less than five minutes,
Absolutely less than five minutes. In Philly, about a third
of gunshot victims are brought into hospit pootles by police themselves.
Police save Ian's life by running him to the e R.
I found out the next day that I had about
(11:09):
forty five seconds to a minute before I would have
led out. I was panicking beyond belief. Um, but the
police officers were doing everything they can to keep me calm.
The one officer was turned around, asked me questions about school,
asked me about my family, just trying to keep me
awake and alert. Right when they pulled into the emergency room,
(11:32):
the ambulance pulled onto the street and one of the
cops kind of jokingly said to me, you know, there
goes your ride. The way it seems now is if
I was shot in any other major city other than Philadelphia,
I probably wouldn't have survived. It's kind of hard for
me to wrap my head around that not being the case. Um.
(11:54):
I know it's not in every cops job description, but
it just seems like it seems like thing that just
goes along with protecting the community. I always believe that
if my son could have gotten the care that you've gotten, Um,
that he would be alive today. So had he gotten
(12:14):
to the hospital in time, you know, within five minutes,
ten minutes max, if he would have gotten to the hospital,
I think they could have saved his life. I'm so
sorry to hear that. That makes that makes me feel
so terrible. Ian has grown close to the officers who
(12:38):
saved him. He even tattooed their names on his chest.
They came and saw me the next morning after I
was shot. UM made a joke about how I got
to clean out the back of their car because there's
so much blood in it. You know, these two guys
saved my life, whether it was their job or not.
Um so I still keep in touch with them. Yeah,
I wouldn't be here without them, so so I just
(13:00):
always keep them really close. I can't help but think
how differently I'd feel if those officers had just scooped
up my son and rushed him to the hospital. Of course,
Ian is white. Would Philly police have picked up Courtney
(13:24):
and rushed him to the er? We can't say for sure.
Scoop and run is a longstanding practice in Philly, but
not in Chicago. It is allowed here. Chicago police have
the discretion to do it, but the practice isn't encouraged.
(13:45):
What if my son's life mattered to police like Inn's
did when officers saved him. What if when my son
came to police begging him for help, they didn't handcuff him,
they didn't check to see if he really owned his car.
What if they went with him in the ambulance. What
if it had been their kid who had been shot
(14:06):
on that corner. The consent decree is a two page
document that is the result of ten months of negotiations
between the Attorney General's Office, the Police Department, and the city.
After two highly critical reports found systemic problems in the
police department in the use of unnecessary and deadly forced
(14:27):
in the years since Courtney died, the federal court has
ordered Chicago police to clean up their act. Officers will
have to report every time they point their guns at people,
they won't be able to use chokeos, and there are
more changes, lots more changes. Under the consent decree, all
(14:50):
of Chicago police officers would have to take medical and
rescue training and use it to help people who are injured.
Even before paramedics arrived immediately with no delays. They weren't
required to do any of that before. It's tough living
(15:13):
this life and the skin we're in. This is Courtney's
high school friend again, Chance the wrapper. I just wish
that he was respected as a human life on the
level that that he should have been, that that we
respect him. And you know, you can't, you can't change
the skin you're in. You're just like you just live
your life, and you know he lived it to the fullest.
(15:36):
There are so many people, so many people who care
about Corney. Every time I've interviewed one of them. It's
like I bring him back to life a little. He
was one out of a trillion. Everybody needs somebody like
like Courton Copeland in life. He taught me to believe
in myself. Something he used to always say was like
everyone deserves happiness. That's what he gave people. And he
(15:59):
would always make me laugh. You know, no matter what,
that man would make me laugh. It would make all
of us laugh. And I just remember thinking to myself, like,
where does he get all this energy from? I miss
him dearly because on my difficult days, he was always
there for me. If there's more people like him, this
world will be a lot different. I tried to interview
(16:24):
Courtney's sisters, Kayla and Jasmine. They still aren't ready to
talk about what happened. Tell us about your relationship with
your brother. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. You're gonna
(16:53):
be able to do this. Mh dress man. I know
(17:14):
it's hard for you, it seems so. We talked about
other memories. Every day when Courtney came home, he would
lay in your bed, right, can tell us about that.
I never got to leave my big because he was
always there, and he would do it just to annoy me.
So what happened when you get home from school? I
(17:38):
don't have to find him out of my bed. Why
because he wouldn't get up. He wouldn't get up. He's
always like to lay in your bed. M h h Hey,
(18:08):
Courtney food. I love you, Mommy loves you so much.
(18:29):
I hope you knew that. I want I love you.
I want to still love you. After all this time,
since Courtney passed away, all this fighting for the truth,
I just keep coming back to the fact that my
baby is gone. We hope you though. Mm hmmm. I
(19:19):
started a foundation in Courtney's name. This is our little
sound and workshop down here. We do this big Christmas
giveaway in Courtney's honor. Every year. His bedroom is filled
with toys and we hold this big party at our
church for all the kids. Really, like everybody said, Cortney
loved the kids. So he used to always take care
(19:41):
of all his friends kids and and he like adopted
them all. So Hi, what's your name? All Rock? And
I got a chance about him the things. At Christmas time,
(20:06):
I always get together with my friend Santita Jackson and
help her decorate her place. For the holidays. And how
have you seen me change in the last two years.
You've just become You're just Chapel taken to the in degree.
Now now you your circle has expanded. I've seen you
(20:28):
become even more traveling. I mean, you're someone who's not
afraid of living. You live, you live, you live, you live,
you live, you live, live live with live. But I've
seen you. This is a mission for you. And it's
like you're saying, Okay, Courtney, I'm gonna go on and
finish walking for you. The world's gonna benefit, boy, it's
(20:50):
gonna benefit from you being more of who Chaparral is.
You're gonna triumph. I believe that Courtney's sisters are in
college now, But me and Brent don't exactly have an
empty ness. Our baby foster twins, Faith in Sahara. They're
(21:13):
walking around and getting into everything. I'm trying my best
to party train them. Sahara always takes off from her
potty and then Faith takes off too. This is gonna
be a long process. After taking on the twins, I
opened up my home to their older sisters too. They're teenagers.
(21:37):
It's tough sometimes, but I hope they know I'm on
their side. Me and Brent celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary.
Brent planned a party for us. I got him some
turn tables because he was a DJ before he went
to truck driving school. He was so stoked. I'm are you.
(22:00):
Probably me and Alison and Jamie and all the Invisible
Institute are still real tight. We had a party at
my house not too long ago. I cooked up with Storm.
I'm a spaghetti Cajun chicken pasta fried chicken. Alison brought
(22:20):
mac and cheese. She's got her hands full too. She's
expecting another little boy next spring. When she told me,
I screamed, Oh my goodness. We're gonna get the twins
and her little ones together for a play day and
(22:42):
then there's baby. Someday we'll have to say goodbye to
this car. Cars don't run forever. I call this like
(23:05):
my heritage wall. I love black art. It's just it's
just our history. And the other day I was showing
Alison the paintings all over my house, and so if
you look around, this one over here in the corner
basically is talking about the woman who touched the hands
of Jesus garments. And then this one over here in
(23:29):
the corner is about the underground railroad. This one here
is a slave in captivity, and that one is m.
Frederick Douglas. I always tried to teach my kids about
where they came from, about that we didn't start off
a slave. But this is something that happens to us.
There's one painting in particular in my dining room. It's
(23:53):
of a slave, his faces in his hands and his
hands are shackled. This painting is called the Struggle Lives
on Um. I've probably sat at this table what a
dozen times at least, and this is the first time
I'm noticing this picture on the wall. I've had it
(24:14):
for probably like twenty years now, and it's always been
very special to me. And we don't know when the
artist was painting that. If he was depicting that was
somebody's last moments, last time you know that they're going
to be alive. Could be because we see that he's
in deep despair. And this is the story of my son, Courtney,
(24:39):
a young black man in a fancy car. You black
people have been shackled and abuse for so long, and
then you have this happened to your child. He wound
up with a bullet in his back outside of a
Chicago police station. As a mother, you do what for
(25:00):
you can to protect your child, and in that moment,
I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. And then
you say here and you're like, I should have been there,
and it was beyond my control. And it's the story
of my search for the truth. The hardest moment in
(25:22):
my life was finding out my son had died, and
it's still the hardest moment living without him. That's that's
that's my reality. My son, Courtney Copeland was somebody. YEA.
(26:17):
Somebody is a co production of The Invisible Institute, The Intercept,
Topic Studios, and I Heart Radio in association with Tenderfoot TV.
I'm Chaparral Wells. This podcast is produced by Alison Flowers
and Bill Heally. Sarah Guys is our story editor. Ellen
Glover is our associate producer for The Invisible Institute. Jamie
(26:42):
Calvin is executive producer for Topic Studios. Maria Zuckerman, Christie Gressman,
and Letial Mallard are executive producers. Special thanks to Lizzie
Jacobs for The Intercept. Roger Hodge, Deputy editor is supervising producer.
Sound designed by Carl Scott and Bart Warshaw. Michael Rayphael
(27:03):
is our mixed engineer. Our theme song, Everybody's Something is
by Chance the Rapper. Original music for the podcast by
Nate Fox of The Social Experiment and Eric Butler. Additional
reporting by Sam Stecklo, Annie When, Khari Blackburn, raj Sinclair,
Henry Adams, Matilda Voyad, Dana brozos kellerher Frances McDonald, Diana Archmagian,
(27:30):
Maddie Anderson, Andrew Fan and risa Apintaku. Translation support by
Benny Hernandez Ocampo and Emma Perez. Fact checking by Noah
Are Jenny Special thanks to Chris Rasmussen, Bennett Epstein, Matt Topic,
David Bralow, and Julie Wolf. We want to hear from you.
(27:51):
Email us at info at Somebody podcast dot com or
leave us a voicemail at seven seven three to seven
zero zero one to one. To learn more about this
case and for links to additional materials, go to our
show page at Somebody podcast dot com. You can also
(28:12):
find a list of everyone we want to think there
so many people helped us along the way. Elizabeth van
Brocklin's original story Scoop and Run, where cop cars double
as ambulances, first appeared in The Trace. Everybody's somebody's everything,
(28:42):
Nobodies knocking
What you are about to hear is the work of
the investigative journalism that explores one woman's search for answers
in her son's death. The views and opinions in this
podcast do not reflect those of I Heart Media. Yo.
So this is me. You know. My name is Corny Copeman,
and the reason I'm here is three time my parents.
(00:23):
Two is the biggest year of my life. You know.
The world is ours, you know, and we just gotta
go out there and get it. Let's get it. The
world is ours. We just have to get out there
and get it. Before Courtney died, I was too afraid
(00:49):
to travel far. I've always had the fear of flying.
But Courtney wanted us to travel more and see the
world with him. Courtney only got a taste of what's
out there. But since he's been gone, I've been all
over this world. It started when Courtney came to me
(01:11):
in a dream. He told me, Mom, I want you
to live. I want you to go to Dubai. And
I was like Dubai. When I woke up, I booked
the trip. Bye Mall me and the whole family went,
(01:37):
but Brazil. I went there on my own. Here I
am in the city of Salvador. I took this video
of people dancing outside my window late at night. I
was trying to sleep, but everyone was so happy. I
couldn't be mad. At I went for a gathering of
(02:05):
mothers of murdered children. There were about a hundred of
us there from all over, all of us fighting the
same struggle we're fighting in Chicago. In Salvador, we were
not far from the main square where they used to
auction off slaves. I was surprised that Brazil was so
(02:32):
afrocentric and so black, But then that's when I started
to understand the amount of slaves that were actually sent
to Brazil, and so it was a learning experience for me.
(02:52):
There were so many languages spoken at this summit. Mom
after mom we told our stories. There was one mom
whose child died of hunger and thirst in prison. There's
(03:13):
another mom whose son got shot by police during a massacre.
Then it was my turn. My heart rejoices to see
the unity that is in this place made you're going
(03:37):
to ship Oh my god. Uh, this reunion have brought
the pain of a lot of mothers. But my message
to the mothers today is I don't want you to
mourn any longer, but to rejoice in the life of
(03:58):
your children the because they are more than what happened
to them. I think about Courtney, I think about all
the mothers who told their testimony and stories. And there's
one thing that keeps coming to my head. I recalled
my aunt telling me after Courtney died, and I tell you,
(04:23):
they can never kill the lights. Never kill the light,
Courtney Copeland, Brazil. It restored my soul. All this time
(04:46):
I've been fighting so hard, I hadn't really had time
to mourn. I had put all of that on the
shelf because I had work to do. I was starting
to feel stronger. And it's a good thing, because when
I got back home, I needed all the strength I
(05:08):
could get. Our case against the City of Chicago was
looking like an uphill battle. The city's lawyers kept fighting
us in court. They kept denying everything, even the handcuffing,
and eventually my lawyer said we should dismiss the case,
(05:31):
that these cases were just too hard to win. I
was devastated. I was heartbroken. After the lawyers told us that,
Brent and I sat in an empty conference room at
(05:53):
the courthouse. We've been through lawyer, lawyer and it's they
just they just don't just don't want to mess with it.
I think it boils down to what CPD can get
away with legally, which for me is the reason why
I feel like so many laws and things have to
(06:15):
be changed so that that they don't have to they
don't have as much power as they do. Yeah, well,
the average person in America, you cannot win against CPD.
(06:38):
It didn't take long for the police lawyers to announce
their victory. They wrote on their website that the lawsuit
was unnecessary and they called the dismissal a win for
the City of Chicago. In the police department, the lawsuit
(07:01):
was over, and our investigation was too. We already gave
detectives all of our evidence, the names of suspects and witnesses.
But I was not gonna let my baby die for nothing.
(07:34):
What if what if the world was different, What if
Chicago was different? What if moms like me didn't have
to address their son and tuxedos put them in caskets
and lower them into the ground. Well, I'm on my
(08:01):
way to meet with the state rep right now to
propose Courtney's law. Me and my state rep. We've had
a couple of conversations now about all the reforms needed,
what my investigation has pulled together. Things that I want
(08:25):
to try to put into this law. Of Courtney's law
is one that police must provide life saving techniques because
they were first on the scene. I think that they
should have been Minister that I want Chicago police to
take people who have been shot immediately to the hospital.
(08:49):
And I want those police podcameras to work and whole
footage longer, and all the public records they should be
all in one place so victims family don't have to
get the runner down. So that's why I'm trying to
fight for other people. Corney is finished, that is done,
(09:10):
but if I can prevent other parents from experiencing this
type of pain, what I want for other parents is
that they know with certainty that their child died with
dignity and respect. I realized that in all of this
process that didn't happen for my son. I read the
(09:41):
story about a thing that police do in Philadelphia. They
call it scoop and run. Police pick up people who
have been shot and drive them to the hospital themselves.
They don't wait for an ambulance. Here's video of a
scooping run in progress. It sounds chaotic, but it's actually
(10:04):
police trying to help someone. This was the scariest moment
of my life. By far Ian Hurst. Herman's was around
the same age as Courtney when he was shot in
(10:25):
the middle of the night outside of party in Philly.
Two police officers arrived on the scene. They looked at
each other, gave a nod. One grab my arms and
one grab my legs. Um. The only issue was is
this guy going to bleed out or not? So from
the time that you got shot until the time that
(10:47):
you arrived to the hospital, approximately how many minutes was that?
It's hard to say. I would say less than five minutes,
Absolutely less than five minutes. In Philly, about a third
of gunshot victims are brought into hospit pootles by police themselves.
Police save Ian's life by running him to the e R.
I found out the next day that I had about
(11:09):
forty five seconds to a minute before I would have
led out. I was panicking beyond belief. Um, but the
police officers were doing everything they can to keep me calm.
The one officer was turned around, asked me questions about school,
asked me about my family, just trying to keep me
awake and alert. Right when they pulled into the emergency room,
(11:32):
the ambulance pulled onto the street and one of the
cops kind of jokingly said to me, you know, there
goes your ride. The way it seems now is if
I was shot in any other major city other than Philadelphia,
I probably wouldn't have survived. It's kind of hard for
me to wrap my head around that not being the case. Um.
(11:54):
I know it's not in every cops job description, but
it just seems like it seems like thing that just
goes along with protecting the community. I always believe that
if my son could have gotten the care that you've gotten, Um,
that he would be alive today. So had he gotten
(12:14):
to the hospital in time, you know, within five minutes,
ten minutes max, if he would have gotten to the hospital,
I think they could have saved his life. I'm so
sorry to hear that. That makes that makes me feel
so terrible. Ian has grown close to the officers who
(12:38):
saved him. He even tattooed their names on his chest.
They came and saw me the next morning after I
was shot. UM made a joke about how I got
to clean out the back of their car because there's
so much blood in it. You know, these two guys
saved my life, whether it was their job or not.
Um so I still keep in touch with them. Yeah,
I wouldn't be here without them, so so I just
(13:00):
always keep them really close. I can't help but think
how differently I'd feel if those officers had just scooped
up my son and rushed him to the hospital. Of course,
Ian is white. Would Philly police have picked up Courtney
(13:24):
and rushed him to the er? We can't say for sure.
Scoop and run is a longstanding practice in Philly, but
not in Chicago. It is allowed here. Chicago police have
the discretion to do it, but the practice isn't encouraged.
(13:45):
What if my son's life mattered to police like Inn's
did when officers saved him. What if when my son
came to police begging him for help, they didn't handcuff him,
they didn't check to see if he really owned his car.
What if they went with him in the ambulance. What
if it had been their kid who had been shot
(14:06):
on that corner. The consent decree is a two page
document that is the result of ten months of negotiations
between the Attorney General's Office, the Police Department, and the city.
After two highly critical reports found systemic problems in the
police department in the use of unnecessary and deadly forced
(14:27):
in the years since Courtney died, the federal court has
ordered Chicago police to clean up their act. Officers will
have to report every time they point their guns at people,
they won't be able to use chokeos, and there are
more changes, lots more changes. Under the consent decree, all
(14:50):
of Chicago police officers would have to take medical and
rescue training and use it to help people who are injured.
Even before paramedics arrived immediately with no delays. They weren't
required to do any of that before. It's tough living
(15:13):
this life and the skin we're in. This is Courtney's
high school friend again, Chance the wrapper. I just wish
that he was respected as a human life on the
level that that he should have been, that that we
respect him. And you know, you can't, you can't change
the skin you're in. You're just like you just live
your life, and you know he lived it to the fullest.
(15:36):
There are so many people, so many people who care
about Corney. Every time I've interviewed one of them. It's
like I bring him back to life a little. He
was one out of a trillion. Everybody needs somebody like
like Courton Copeland in life. He taught me to believe
in myself. Something he used to always say was like
everyone deserves happiness. That's what he gave people. And he
(15:59):
would always make me laugh. You know, no matter what,
that man would make me laugh. It would make all
of us laugh. And I just remember thinking to myself, like,
where does he get all this energy from? I miss
him dearly because on my difficult days, he was always
there for me. If there's more people like him, this
world will be a lot different. I tried to interview
(16:24):
Courtney's sisters, Kayla and Jasmine. They still aren't ready to
talk about what happened. Tell us about your relationship with
your brother. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. You're gonna
(16:53):
be able to do this. Mh dress man. I know
(17:14):
it's hard for you, it seems so. We talked about
other memories. Every day when Courtney came home, he would
lay in your bed, right, can tell us about that.
I never got to leave my big because he was
always there, and he would do it just to annoy me.
So what happened when you get home from school? I
(17:38):
don't have to find him out of my bed. Why
because he wouldn't get up. He wouldn't get up. He's
always like to lay in your bed. M h h Hey,
(18:08):
Courtney food. I love you, Mommy loves you so much.
(18:29):
I hope you knew that. I want I love you.
I want to still love you. After all this time,
since Courtney passed away, all this fighting for the truth,
I just keep coming back to the fact that my
baby is gone. We hope you though. Mm hmmm. I
(19:19):
started a foundation in Courtney's name. This is our little
sound and workshop down here. We do this big Christmas
giveaway in Courtney's honor. Every year. His bedroom is filled
with toys and we hold this big party at our
church for all the kids. Really, like everybody said, Cortney
loved the kids. So he used to always take care
(19:41):
of all his friends kids and and he like adopted
them all. So Hi, what's your name? All Rock? And
I got a chance about him the things. At Christmas time,
(20:06):
I always get together with my friend Santita Jackson and
help her decorate her place. For the holidays. And how
have you seen me change in the last two years.
You've just become You're just Chapel taken to the in degree.
Now now you your circle has expanded. I've seen you
(20:28):
become even more traveling. I mean, you're someone who's not
afraid of living. You live, you live, you live, you live,
you live, you live, live live with live. But I've
seen you. This is a mission for you. And it's
like you're saying, Okay, Courtney, I'm gonna go on and
finish walking for you. The world's gonna benefit, boy, it's
(20:50):
gonna benefit from you being more of who Chaparral is.
You're gonna triumph. I believe that Courtney's sisters are in
college now, But me and Brent don't exactly have an
empty ness. Our baby foster twins, Faith in Sahara. They're
(21:13):
walking around and getting into everything. I'm trying my best
to party train them. Sahara always takes off from her
potty and then Faith takes off too. This is gonna
be a long process. After taking on the twins, I
opened up my home to their older sisters too. They're teenagers.
(21:37):
It's tough sometimes, but I hope they know I'm on
their side. Me and Brent celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary.
Brent planned a party for us. I got him some
turn tables because he was a DJ before he went
to truck driving school. He was so stoked. I'm are you.
(22:00):
Probably me and Alison and Jamie and all the Invisible
Institute are still real tight. We had a party at
my house not too long ago. I cooked up with Storm.
I'm a spaghetti Cajun chicken pasta fried chicken. Alison brought
(22:20):
mac and cheese. She's got her hands full too. She's
expecting another little boy next spring. When she told me,
I screamed, Oh my goodness. We're gonna get the twins
and her little ones together for a play day and
(22:42):
then there's baby. Someday we'll have to say goodbye to
this car. Cars don't run forever. I call this like
(23:05):
my heritage wall. I love black art. It's just it's
just our history. And the other day I was showing
Alison the paintings all over my house, and so if
you look around, this one over here in the corner
basically is talking about the woman who touched the hands
of Jesus garments. And then this one over here in
(23:29):
the corner is about the underground railroad. This one here
is a slave in captivity, and that one is m.
Frederick Douglas. I always tried to teach my kids about
where they came from, about that we didn't start off
a slave. But this is something that happens to us.
There's one painting in particular in my dining room. It's
(23:53):
of a slave, his faces in his hands and his
hands are shackled. This painting is called the Struggle Lives
on Um. I've probably sat at this table what a
dozen times at least, and this is the first time
I'm noticing this picture on the wall. I've had it
(24:14):
for probably like twenty years now, and it's always been
very special to me. And we don't know when the
artist was painting that. If he was depicting that was
somebody's last moments, last time you know that they're going
to be alive. Could be because we see that he's
in deep despair. And this is the story of my son, Courtney,
(24:39):
a young black man in a fancy car. You black
people have been shackled and abuse for so long, and
then you have this happened to your child. He wound
up with a bullet in his back outside of a
Chicago police station. As a mother, you do what for
(25:00):
you can to protect your child, and in that moment,
I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. And then
you say here and you're like, I should have been there,
and it was beyond my control. And it's the story
of my search for the truth. The hardest moment in
(25:22):
my life was finding out my son had died, and
it's still the hardest moment living without him. That's that's
that's my reality. My son, Courtney Copeland was somebody. YEA.
(26:17):
Somebody is a co production of The Invisible Institute, The Intercept,
Topic Studios, and I Heart Radio in association with Tenderfoot TV.
I'm Chaparral Wells. This podcast is produced by Alison Flowers
and Bill Heally. Sarah Guys is our story editor. Ellen
Glover is our associate producer for The Invisible Institute. Jamie
(26:42):
Calvin is executive producer for Topic Studios. Maria Zuckerman, Christie Gressman,
and Letial Mallard are executive producers. Special thanks to Lizzie
Jacobs for The Intercept. Roger Hodge, Deputy editor is supervising producer.
Sound designed by Carl Scott and Bart Warshaw. Michael Rayphael
(27:03):
is our mixed engineer. Our theme song, Everybody's Something is
by Chance the Rapper. Original music for the podcast by
Nate Fox of The Social Experiment and Eric Butler. Additional
reporting by Sam Stecklo, Annie When, Khari Blackburn, raj Sinclair,
Henry Adams, Matilda Voyad, Dana brozos kellerher Frances McDonald, Diana Archmagian,
(27:30):
Maddie Anderson, Andrew Fan and risa Apintaku. Translation support by
Benny Hernandez Ocampo and Emma Perez. Fact checking by Noah
Are Jenny Special thanks to Chris Rasmussen, Bennett Epstein, Matt Topic,
David Bralow, and Julie Wolf. We want to hear from you.
(27:51):
Email us at info at Somebody podcast dot com or
leave us a voicemail at seven seven three to seven
zero zero one to one. To learn more about this
case and for links to additional materials, go to our
show page at Somebody podcast dot com. You can also
(28:12):
find a list of everyone we want to think there
so many people helped us along the way. Elizabeth van
Brocklin's original story Scoop and Run, where cop cars double
as ambulances, first appeared in The Trace. Everybody's somebody's everything,
(28:42):
Nobodies knocking
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