'I decided to keep going, partially because it felt too late to turn back, and also because I believed what happened to Allen was wrong, even if I didn’t fully believe him.' | Read more of mdoukmas's LisagorAward-winning story here 👇
Dear Maya, Blessed life to you and yours, always. And I pray you will have a very good day. This leaves me well. I received the book with your letter. Thank you for writing and sending the book. Your letter came as a disappointment to me. And after re-reading it, I decided the time had come for me to relieve you of our agreement for you to write about my cases. Your letter explained to me your approach to writing about me. It explains a course of writing that I'm not interested in.
This logic is, of course, as self-serving as the duplicitous “friendship” the journalist develops with a cooperative subject. Publishing a story someone doesn’t want out there is an act of betrayal even if you have no relationship to them. As a journalist, especially a white one, the way you justify it to yourself is by saying that the story is bigger than its central character, that his life experiences aren’t really just his to publicize or keep private, that they belong to everyone.
Allen’s attorney, a seasoned appellate litigator named Steven Becker, needed the original trial transcripts to prepare for the Ciralsky post-conviction hearing. But for three years the clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County couldn’t find a box of his records in her warehouse. Before we entered the gates of the old prison complex, Debbie took off most of her rings and watch and Bluetooth earpiece and left them in the car, keeping on a gold chain with a small cross. We placed our keys and wallets in a metal coin locker at the drab reception area and waited for pat-downs.
When he got out, he and his buddies transitioned from robbing criminals to robbing companies that didn’t hire Black workers. One of Allen’s friends worked in the personnel department at Bell & Howell, a camera manufacturer in Lincolnwood, and saw that very few Black candidates were getting hired. And so in early January 1969, 19-year-old Allen and two accomplices in their 20s tracked the route of the armored truck delivering the company’s payroll and plotted a heist.
"Allen stared at the floor and his entire demeanor changed. During the first three days of the trial, Allen was almost jubilant and a sly smile frequently creased his face. After the statement was read, however, Allen became openly hostile, glowering at the state's attorney and the bailiff assigned to guard him."
But officials from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office and the Chicago Police Department vociferously opposed his parole. Every time Allen petitioned the board they wrote scathing letters in protest. “He has been a threat to society all his adult life and culminated his criminal activity by brutally murdering a Chicago police officer,” State’s Attorney Bernard Carey wrote in 1978.
Still, Allen said he wanted to work. He said he tried a job at the People’s Law Office, but he didn’t last long enough to even draw a paycheck. He recalled that police officers would follow him to the office and harass him and that he and the lawyers came to an agreement that it was better for them to part ways.
There are two stories about what happened next and which one you believe depends on who you see as credible, and on how the impression of credibility builds in your mind based on your own beliefs, biases, and experiences.
No bullets were found on the exit ramp near the body, but the blood on the scene suggested a story of movement. There were two trails—a short one close to the ramp’s juncture with 73rd Street, and a longer one which flowed from Gibson’s body. No reports confirm that the disconnected, shorter trail of blood belonged to Gibson, but in one of the first media accounts of the case thereported that Area One detectives believed Gibson to have been shot near the bottom of the ramp.
A week later the detectives interviewed Ashley. He said he didn’t know anything about the killing, but that he’d seen Gibson talking to someone he knew to be a cop two or three times a week for “a couple of months.” He mentioned that Gibson had a beef with someone named “Bull.” Ashley also wanted to know whether detectives had made any progress on investigating the armed robbery he’d reported a few days earlier, when he was attacked in an alley behind his home.
Detectives also interviewed the last people who saw Ciralsky alive—John Dorbin, who’d worked for Ciralsky for the last 30 years, and a CPD sergeant named James Moran who’d been friendly with the shopkeeper. Dorbin said he and Ciralsky closed up the store and as they left, Moran had pulled up and Ciralsky stopped to chat. Dorbin and Ciralsky both got in their cars and drove north on Indiana; Dorbin didn’t see anyone following Ciralsky home.
Not only did the alleged killers apprise Moore of their plan and show him their weapons, but they also told him it was an “easy contract” when he saw them a couple of days after the murder. Moore said they told him they were now searching for Ashley to get paid and that Allen threatened to kill Ashley if they didn’t get their money.
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