Off Duty: The Crime | Ep 1

About this episode

This episode investigates the shooting of Officer Clifton Lewis and the subsequent police interrogation of suspects affiliated with a gang.

On the evening of 29 December 2011, Officer Clifton Lewis was moonlighting as a security guard at a Chicago minimart when two men walked in. They shot Lewis several times, then took off with his gun and police star. A week later, police had their suspects: four men affiliated with a gang called the Spanish Cobras. For hours, under intense police questioning, they all said they didn’t do it. But that didn’t seem to matter. This is episode one of Off Duty, an investigation by the Guardian’s Melissa Segura

People in this episode

Host: Melissa Segura

Topics covered

• crime
• police investigation
• gang violence
• Chicago
• security guard

Keywords

• Clifton Lewis
• Spanish Cobras
• Chicago
• police shooting
• gang violence
• investigation

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Spanish Cobras, The Guardian

More episodes of Black Box: The Chatbots

• Off Duty: The Last Stand | Ep 7 · March 18, 2026 · 37 min
• Off Duty: The Sentence | Ep 6 · March 18, 2026 · 18 min
• Off Duty: The Prosecutors | Ep 5 · March 18, 2026 · 32 min
• Off Duty: Digital Forensics | Ep 4 · March 18, 2026 · 24 min
• Off Duty: The Police | Ep 3 · March 18, 2026 · 29 min
• Off Duty: The Interrogations | Ep 2 · March 18, 2026 · 32 min