Vol. 79/No. 38      October 26, 2015

Pinex was responding to the results of an investigation launched in the wake of a federal wrongful death suit she had filed against the police and the city of Chicago. In March a jury ruled in favor of officers Gildardo Sierra and Raoul Mosqueda. But in light of the cops’ possible false testimony and misconduct on the part of the city’s attorney that surfaced during the trial, Judge Edmond Chang ordered the inquiry.

On Jan. 7, 2011, Sierra and Mosqueda fired at least eight bullets into the car Pinex was driving, killing him and injuring passenger Matthew Colyer. At the time they told police investigators they stopped the car because it matched the description on a police radio dispatch of the vehicle driven by a suspect in a shooting earlier that night. They continued to tell that story for the next four years.

But in court the tale began to unravel.

It came out that the two cops did not hear the dispatch as they claimed, because it aired over a different police radio zone, calling into question their justification for stopping the car, and even more approaching it with guns drawn.

Court records also revealed that the city’s lead attorney, Jordan Marsh, knew about this discrepancy at least a week before the trial began but did not inform Pinex’s attorney of this.

The cover-up appears to have begun minutes after Sgt. Jeffrey Siwek, the two cops’ superior, arrived on the scene. Siwek called an emergency dispatcher over his police radio to ask if the car Pinex was driving was wanted. After a brief exchange, the two moved the conversation off an official radio frequency, which is monitored and recorded, onto private cellular phones.

“If they had pulled these two cops off the streets after Darius was killed, Flint Farmer would be alive today,” Pinex told the press. Six months after gunning down her son, Sierra killed Farmer, firing three bullets into his back as he lay on the ground.

Among those joining Pinex at the news conference were Darius Pinex’s grandmother Gloria Johnson and brother Demarlon Simpkins; Wallace Bradley, a leader in the fight to jail cop John Burge, infamous for torture; Panzy Edwards, mother of Dakota Bright, killed by Chicago cops Nov. 8, 2012; and Freddy McGhee, father of Freddy Wilson, killed by police in 2007.
 
 
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