Off Duty | The Guardian Investigates · The Guardian

Off Duty: The Crime | Ep 1

March 18, 2026·26 min·1 clip

Clifton Lewis was shot at Chicago's M&M Mini Mart, then the case hardened into a seven-year wrongful-conviction fight.

Clifton Lewis arrived for his shift at the M&M Mini Mart on Chicago’s West Side after working days as an officer in the Chicago Police Department. He was moonlighting as a security guard for extra money. He was behind the counter talking with the store owner and a clerk when two men walked in. They shot him several times and then took off. A bystander called 911 almost immediately. Lewis was rushed to Stroger Hospital. More than 200 police officers gathered in the parking lot. He was pronounced dead there. He had been on the force for eight years. He was Black. He lived in the neighborhood he served. He had gotten engaged four days earlier, on Christmas morning. Police launched a massive manhunt. The brass ordered that police work only this case until it was solved. Tips poured in. Many pointed toward the Four Corner Hustlers, the gang that controlled the area around the Mini Mart. A week later, police had suspects. They were not Four Corner Hustlers. They were four men affiliated with the Spanish Cobras. For hours, under intense questioning, they said they did not do it. The story then turns to Alex and the people around him. One family member describes him as a well-known local figure, charming, always dressed nicely, always around. The episode does not try to smooth over his past. It states plainly that he had a serious conviction of his own: a hit-and-run death that happened 11 months after Officer Lewis was killed. That history made his legal fight harder, and it gave his family one more thing to explain. It also made the neat movie version of innocence feel less useful than reality. The narration explains that most people who commit crimes are also the victims of crimes. That complexity matters here. When Alex’s family began searching for a lawyer to handle his appeal, they hit wall after wall. Law clinics that specialize in wrongful convictions turned them away, according to the family. Private defense lawyers did too. Once the charge involved the murder of a police officer, the family says the response changed. The episode treats that shift as part of the case itself. It follows how suspicion and reputation can shape access to justice. The family describes feeling judged before anyone learned the details. The story keeps circling back to how the case hardened around one version of events. The episode also includes the official silence around the matter. The Chicago Police Department did not provide answers. Court documents say officers deny misconduct. Prosecutors also denied wrongdoing in court papers. The result is not a tidy resolution. It is a portrait of a murder case that reached beyond the crime scene and into the machinery of policing, prosecution, and appeal. The episode leaves the listener with pressure building from every side. It is less interested in a quick reveal than in showing how a case like this is built, defended, and contested.

As heard by us

A measured true-crime episode that follows the evidence rather than the easy version.

Off Duty starts with the killing of Chicago police officer Clifton Lewis and then moves through the manhunt, the first suspects, and the later fight over Alex's conviction.

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Why you'd press play

You want a police-case story that turns into a murder-conviction appeal.

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