The then off-duty Chicago cop who fired his gun out of his car window, striking and killing Rekia Boyd, an innocent bystander, now wants all evidence of the criminal case filed against him cleared from the public record.
Even though Dante Servin got off scot-free on charges of involuntary manslaughter when a Chicago judge threw out the case, saying he should have been charged with murder in the 2012 death of the 22-year-old, Servin has been tormented ever since, his lawyer, Matt Fakhoury, tells the Chicago Tribune.
Not necessarily by Boyd’s death, to hear Servin’s lawyer tell it, but because it’s just been so hard for Servin to get a job to support his family with only the approximately $57,000-a-year cop pension he currently receives.
Yes, Servin still receives his pension because he was allowed to voluntarily resign from the Chicago police force, thus preserving his pension rights.
Per the Tribune:
Since the shooting, Servin, 51, has struggled to find steady work and been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety and “extreme depression,” Fakhoury said.
“We’re trying to get him the fresh start he deserves,” the lawyer said.
Servin’s attempt to have his record expunged is being opposed by Chicago prosecutors, and has Boyd’s family expressing surprise and disgust.
“I’m still perturbed that this guy is still out here and he’s able to roam around like this,” Boyd’s brother, Martinez Sutton, told the Tribune. “If a judge is stating that, if anything, this case should have been charged as murder, then why should he be able to live a free and happy life and his so-called blemishes erased?”
Servin’s lawyer said the judge’s decision highlighted the weakness of the case against his client surrounding his actions when he fatally shot Boyd while he was driving by a park near his home one March night in 2012.
As the Tribune recounts:
Servin was off-duty and in plainclothes when he said he politely asked a group to hold the noise down as he drove by Douglas Park near his West Side home late one night in March 2012.
As one man, Antonio Cross, angrily approached his car, Servin said, he believed he saw Cross pull a gun from his waistband.
Servin said he yelled that he was a police officer, drew his Glock 9 mm and opened fire over his shoulder from inside his Mercedes as he continued to drive.
Cross was wounded in the hand, but Boyd, who was laughing with her friends while standing about 30 feet behind Cross, was shot once in the back of the head. She died the next day.
Cross later said he’d only been holding a cellphone, and no gun was ever found to have been at the scene—other than Servin’s.
Now, Chicago prosecutors are fighting Servin’s expungement request. If Servin gets his way, it may open the door to his entering law enforcement again, a scenario his lawyer didn’t deny, the Tribune reports.
That really concerns Sutton, who also says his faith in Chicago’s prosecutors is shot as well, telling the Tribune:
Whatever pain and stress afflicts Servin pales by comparison with what his sister’s family still must deal with, Sutton said.
“He suffered for the past few years when we have to suffer for the rest of our lives,” he said. “ ... It seems like it just happened yesterday.”