A black woman caught on camera stealing a cop car and backing over a white police officer was found not guilty of attempted murder and not guilty by reason of insanity on additional charges.
Whitley Temple, 35, received the verdict from Chicago Judge Tyria Walton, who made the decision in a short bench trial following a month of continuances, CWB Chicago reported. Temple is now required to follow a treatment plan instead of serving time in prison.
The prosecution showed that in June 2022, Chicago police officer Ed Poppish was responding to a report of shots fired when he saw Temple lying in the street, half-naked. Poppish requested an ambulance, and as he did so, Temple got up, started saying the officer’s name over and over, and then walked around him to get behind the wheel of his patrol car.
Poppish tried to stop her, but she allegedly responded: “Let me go. This has nothing to do with you.”
Surveillance footage and a witness’ own recording showed what happened next. Temple reversed the cop car, dragging Poppish into another vehicle and striking his head. He sustained a concussion and injury that required six stitches. The original charges against Temple noted that it was “a miracle” he survived, CWB reported.
Temple then drove the squad car to a gas station and left the car running while she went into the station, returned to the vehicle, and drove away again. She then drove the wrong way on the Eisenhower Expressway, weaving through traffic at 76 miles per hour before exiting onto Sacramento Boulevard and running red lights.
She struck five occupied vehicles, got out of the squad car, and ran down the block before cops finally arrested her.
While the case against her was pending, Temple was hired as a lead accountant for Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services. She was fired in early 2024 after it became public that the city hired someone who was awaiting trial for allegedly trying to murder a Chicago police officer, CWB reported.
Instead of a jury trial, Temple received a bench trial, during which her defense attorney said his client was “in a psychotic state” during the incident, calling it a “textbook insanity case,” CBS News reported. He added that Temple’s family had been concerned about her for days before the incident and that she had a “paranoid idea” that people were trying to kill the women in her family.
