Former top cop Garry McCarthy testifies at hearing in Clifton Lewis slaying case

The brutality of the 2011 murder of off-duty Chicago police Officer Clifton Lewis prompted rumors inside the department that the killing was a “hit”— and that the target was one of Lewis’ fellow officers, former CPD Supt. Garry McCarthy said during a court hearing Tuesday.

McCarthy, who took the stand in a hearing in the troubled prosecutions of the three men charged with Lewis’ slaying, had referenced the rumors in a 2012 email sent to the entire department the day that charges were filed against alleged gunman Tyrone Clay and alleged lookout Edgardo Colon.

Lewis, a veteran officer, was gunned down while working off-duty as a security guard at M&M Quick Foods in Austin. Two gunmen burst into the store and fired at Lewis, with one of the gunmen jumping over a counter to shoot Lewis as the police officer took cover.

Early in the investigation, McCarthy said that a subordinate had told him rumors were circulating within the department that the shooting was a targeted killing — and another CPD officer who worked at the store was the target. 

McCarthy addressed the rumors in his email announcing the arrests, to draw attention to evidence that the alleged killers were “heartless criminals … who killed a guardian who got in their way.”

“Because this was such a coldblooded, fast-moving murder [some thought] that it was a hit, not a robbery attempt, because the video showed that they just walked in and shot” Lewis, McCarthy said on the stand Tuesday.

“Somebody came up with some kind of rumor like that. So in an organization of 13,000 people you don’t want misinformation floating around so I wanted to put in this document that this was a robbery … and the other officer … was not the target of a murder.”

McCarthy, who now is chief in suburban Willow Springs, took the stand near the end of the daylong hearing in front of Judge Erica Reddick, which was supposed to focus on complaints that CPD officials have been slow to respond to defense subpoenas.

City attorneys insisted that since Reddick in November issued a sweeping order to turn over records, CPD has hired a pair of outside law firms to sift through some 700,000 records that the city is in the process of turning over to either the defense or the judge.

Clay’s attorney, Marijane Placek, said the fact that files turned over to date didn’t mention the alternate theory that Lewis was targeted showed that CPD still was holding back evidence.

McCarthy’s email, as well as other seemingly critical evidence in the case, including FBI cell phone analysis that showed Clay and Colon were miles away from the scene when Lewis was shot, was discovered by lawyers for a third co-defendant, Alexander Villa. The two prosecutors that had handled the case for more than a decade were pulled off the case by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx in January. 

Clay has been awaiting trial for more than 11 years, after an appeals court barred his confession because of police misconduct during his interrogation. Colon was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to 84 years in prison in 2017, but his verdict was overturned by a separate appeals court ruling based on misconduct by investigators. Villa was convicted in 2019, but while preparing post-trial motions, his lawyers unearthed a trove of evidence they claim should have been turned over before his trial.

The hearing will continue Wednesday.