Man convicted of attempted murder in 2020 Englewood police shooting

Sam Charles, Chicago Tribune
Updated ·2 min read
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Three years after he was shot by police — a shooting that purportedly set off a round of looting in the downtown area — an Englewood man was convicted of attempted murder of two Chicago police officers.

A Cook County jury late Wednesday found Latrell Allen, 23, guilty of four counts of attempted murder and four counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, according to county court records. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for July 11.

Prosecutors argued that on Aug. 9, 2020, someone called 911 to report a male with a gun in a park near 57th Street and Racine Avenue. Officers assigned to the Police Department’s Community Safety Team chased Allen into a nearby alley, where they said he fired at them. The officers shot back, striking Allen in the shoulder.

Allen then ran to his nearby home, where he was taken into custody and brought to a hospital.

In a statement issued Thursday, Allen’s attorney Danielle Pinkston said she planned to file post-trial motions “requesting the court to correct the numerous reversible errors made before and during trial.”

“There was not even a scintilla of Latrell’s DNA or fingerprints on the trigger, no gunshot residue was found on the weapon that was attributed to him, no gunshot residue was found on his body, nor on his clothing, all considering he was accused of firing not one, not two, but eight (8) rounds at two Chicago Police Officers who were part of the Community Safety Team,” Pinkston said.

The shooting occurred during the especially tense summer of 2020, in the wake of the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd, a few months after looting and violence broke out across the city.

Another round of looting occurred after Allen was shot, and then-police Superintendent David Brown said at the time that the widespread theft was spurred by “misinformation” about the circumstances of Allen’s shooting. Posts on social media claimed that officers shot an unarmed child, Brown said.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability found that the two officers who shot Allen were justified in their use of deadly force, but the agency recommended a severe punishment for the officer who drove onto a sidewalk, records show. Brown agreed with COPA and called for the officer to serve a 180-day suspension.

Prosecutors said last week that the suspension has yet to be served.