Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Billy Cowart's Self-Defense Story

Discover how USCCA Membership provided critical support to Billy, helping him navigate legal challenges and reclaim his life.

Location: Chicago, Illinois
Charges: 8 counts Attempted Murder, 2 Counts Aggravated Battery, 2 counts Aggravated Discharge of a Firearm
Not Guilty: Found NOT GUILTY After Going to Trial
$175,000: Legal fees covered

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4.3 seconds is all it took…

That's the amount of time that led Billy Cowart to lose his job, go through a felony trial, fight through a year of arbitration, and spend more than two and a half years trying to reclaim his life.

Billy had worked at a Ford Motors assembly plant on the south side of Chicago for 25 years without a single disciplinary action.

He's a former U.S. Army paratrooper, father, grandfather, and a union man in good standing – who had gone through every legal step required to carry a firearm in the state of Illinois … the 16 hours of training, the regulatory hoops, all of it.

On a Friday evening in June 2016, UAW Local 551 was voting on officers.

Members gathered in the parking lot outside the union hall to follow the results. Billy had opinions about the union's leadership. He'd voiced them before and he voiced them that night.

A UAW official with opposing viewpoints crossed the parking lot toward him.

Before he realized what was happening, Billy was hit in the face…

The punch rocked him hard … his hat and glasses went flying. The aggressor, who outweighed Billy by over 100 pounds, was nearly on top of him and continuing to attack.

"My next thought is stop the threat," Billy recalled.

He drew his Springfield 1911 and fired twice – aimed at a downward angle, two rounds out of a possible ten.

The aggressor took a round to the leg ... and a second shot struck another UAW official nearby, also in the leg. The aggressor stumbled away.

Billy immediately reholstered, walked to his car, and drove home.

He didn't run. Not speeding. Not panicking. Just driving.

At home … exhausted, adrenaline still high, he called the Delta Defense Critical Response Team. They connected him with David McDermott, a senior partner at McDermott Law Group in Chicago.

It was late … but McDermott's answering service got him on the line.

Billy described what happened. McDermott told him to calm down, then gave him clear direction: turn yourself in early the next morning. Don't speak to police without him present.

Billy drove to a precinct the next morning and presented his ID.

The desk sergeant looked at his papers and shrugged. "We don't have anything."

Go home, take a shower, relax, McDermott had told him.

McDermott's warning stuck with him: But they are going to come get you.

Between 11:30 p.m. and midnight, Billy's daughter shouted that a dozen police officers had surrounded the house. Flashing lights. A pounding knock. A demand to open the door.

They found the gun in a locked safe in the garage – after calling a locksmith who broke it open and rendered it permanently useless. Billy was shoved, handcuffed, into a patrol car.

The Cook County State's Attorney's Office charged him with eight counts of attempted murder, two counts of aggravated battery, and two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm.

His bond was initially set at $500,000.

McDermott argued it down to $50,000. Billy – a veteran, a working family man, a licensed carrier with no criminal record, went home on house arrest with an electronic monitor.

Then Ford Motors suspended him.

Then they fired him.

His wife took on the mortgage, the car payment, and the groceries. Friends picked sides. He lost some of them. The case dragged on for more than a year while Billy waited, under electronic monitoring, for a trial date.

The defense rested almost entirely on a single piece of evidence: surveillance footage that McDermott subpoenaed from the UAW.

The video showed everything.

A man crossing the parking lot. Stalking toward Billy with intent…

Striking him in the face…

Then continuing to aggressively advance.

During the trial, an unexpected event tilted things further: the proposed trial judge, Joseph Claps, had an illegally carried semi-automatic pistol fall out of his jacket and onto the courthouse floor in front of two Cook County deputies.

An illegally carried pistol fell out of the judge's own jacket.

His cases were transferred – the trial was delayed.

When Billy finally went to trial, the prosecutor could not successfully challenge the footage.

All 12 charges were dismissed. Not guilty.

But the story didn't end there.

Billy wanted his job back. He had been wrongly terminated. He wanted back pay for the 30 months he'd been out of work.

Both Ford and the UAW refused.

It took another year and a contentious arbitration hearing before he was reinstated and began receiving back pay.

From the outside, a "not guilty" verdict might look like a clean ending.

For Billy, it was the beginning of another fight.

"You can say 'innocent until proven guilty,'" he said. "But it's really 'guilty until proven innocent.'"

Through all of it – the charges, the house arrest, the lost job, the trial, the arbitration – Billy said he found something steadying in knowing that a company had his back.

"That was the best feeling," he said. "That I knew a company had my back."

For Billy Cowart, USCCA Membership wasn't just legal support – it was the foundation that kept him standing through one of the longest, most costly ordeals a responsibly armed American can face.

Surviving an attack is only half the battle.

The legal fight that follows can be just as devastating to your freedom, family, and finances.

Attorney retainer:

$25k–$100k+

Expert witnesses:

$5k–$15k

(each)

Trial & bail costs:

$100k–$500k+

JOIN 860,400+ MEMBERS

When you take advantage of the education, training, and self-defense liability insurance¹ you get with your USCCA^® Membership, you'll be ready for the before, during, AND after of a deadly encounter.

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