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and get it. Before Courtney died, I was too afraid 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 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,

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 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 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. 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 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 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 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, they can never kill the lights. Never kill the light, Courtney Copeland, Brazil. It restored my soul. All this time 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

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, 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

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 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. 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 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. 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 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 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. 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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. 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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

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. 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 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 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 be able to do this. Mh dress man. I know 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 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, Courtney food. I love you, Mommy loves you so much. 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 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 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, 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

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 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 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.

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. 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

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 then there's baby. Someday we'll have to say goodbye to this car. Cars don't run forever. I call this like 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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.

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 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 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,

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. 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 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, Nobodies knocking