Evanston Police Chief Apologizes For Personal Snapchat Posts

EVANSTON, IL — Evanston Police Chief Demitrous Cook apologized Friday for publicly posting images that included the names, addresses, birthdays and images of dozens of people to a personal social media account earlier this week.

At a news conference at the Evanston Police Department, Cook said the photos showed people who had been identified in previous investigations. He said he never intended to post the images, which a city spokesperson said were not filtered relative to the investigation.

Screen captures of the Snapchat posts provided to Patch show printouts of photo arrays that appear to be taped to a wall in the police station. Some include handwritten notations like, "DOA [dead on arrival]," "in custody" and "HIV" beside the booking photos of more than 50 people.

"I've used the Snapchat camera in my personal life to take photos and store them on my phone, and I didn't realize they could be made public with the click of a button," Cook said Friday in a prepared statement. "These photos were taken to assist me with an investigation and should have never been made public."

Cook, 61, who was sworn in to succeed retired Chief Rich Eddington in January 2019, said there was no excuse for what happened.

"As soon as I found out about my mistake, I immediately removed the photos," he said. "I've also reached out to personally apologize to members of the community who were rightfully upset."

Cook felt the quality of photos taken using the Snapchat app's camera was superior than his phone's built in camera, according to Communications Manager Patrick Deignan. He said the chief never intended to share them privately or publicly, only to save them on his phone as a reference to help with an ongoing investigation. The chief has since deleted the app from his phone, Deignan said.

"To be sure, I own this mistake, and I want to apologize to the community and to anyone who may have been impacted," Cook said in his statement. "It was never my intent to cause any harm or pain."

Update: Evanston Man Sues Police Chief, City Over 'HIV' Social Media Post