Chicago Cop Sues Estate of Teen He Shot Six Times, Asks for $10 Million

posted Feb. 6, 2015

The Chicago police officer who shot and killed a bat-wielding, emotionally disturbed man — and accidentally killed a neighbor, too — is suing the dead man’s estate for $10 million.

Officer Robert Rialmo, 27, filed the lawsuit on Friday, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.

Rialmo fired his weapon seven times, striking Quintonio LeGrier, 19, six times, including four in the back, and downstairs neighbor Bettie Jones, 55, before sunrise on the day after Christmas. Rialmo contends he fired because LeGrier was coming at him from the doorway of the family’s West Side home with the bat.

He also contends he did not see Jones, who was standing in the hallway. A single bullet struck the grandmother in the heart.

The LeGrier and Jones families filed civil lawsuits against the City of Chicago in early January.

Rialmo’s intention to file a lawsuit was first signaled on Jan. 28 during a hearing for the LeGriers’ wrongful death suit, according to ThinkProgress.org.

Rialmo’s lawyer, Joseph Brodsky, granted an interview to Michael Sneed for the Chicago Sun-Times, which was posted Saturday. The interview appears in the Sun-Times Sunday print edition.

“Lately it seems people have had a tendency to treat confrontations with police officers like a lottery ticket they can cash in,” Brodsky told Sneed. “In this case, a lawsuit against my client was filed before a funeral was held.”

» legal expert tells Patch the case is “outrageous” and he cannot recall another instance of a police officer suing over someone he killed » read more

Rialmo joined the force three years ago. On graduation day from the police academy in March 2013, the Marine Corps veteran, who enlisted at 18 after high school, described for the Chicago Tribune his excitement and anxiety as he prepared to take to the streets of Chicago’s West Side as a rookie.

“I was born and raised here,” he told the Tribune. “I really don’t know what to expect. I’m really anxious, I’m nervous, I’m excited, all of the above. ...

“I was given an opportunity to grow up in a nice neighborhood ... If I can give that to some other people, I feel that’s what I should be doing.”

The officer is claiming emotional distress, physical and emotional trauma, and seeks $10 million punitive damages against the estate.

“He tears up every time he talks about what happened,” Brodsky said.

There were many tears in the days after the deaths of LeGrier and Jones. Family, friends and demonstrators gathered outside their home in the Austin neighborhood, along with local pastors and activists, and decried the actions of the police.

Antonio LeGrier, the young man’s father, broke down and cried during an interview on CNN.

Quintonio LeGrier was an engineering student at Northern Illinois University. He was threatening his father with a bat and experiencing emotional issues when his father called 911 seeking help. Rialmo was among the first officers to arrive at the home at about 4:30 a.m.

His father told the Chicago Sun-Times his son was holding a metal bat when the police arrived in response to a 911 call. The 19-year-old NIU student home for the holidays was angry, emotionally out of control and threatening his dad with the bat. When police arrived, the son went downstairs with the bat.

LeGrier told the Sun-Times he heard Jones, who opened the building’s front door for the officer, yell, “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa!” Those may have been her last words.

LeGrier told the paper he next heard the officer shouting: “F—, no, no, no. I thought he was lunging at me with the (baseball) bat.”

Brodsky told CBS Chicago the bat came within inches of striking Rialmo in the head.

“He told me that he felt the breeze of the bat passing in front of his face — it was that close,” Brodsky said. “That entire time he was shouting orders for LeGrier to drop the bat.”

The officer’s official account of the shooting states that he reached the second step before the front door when LeGrier emerged and swung the bat three times. Attorneys for the Jones and LeGrier families counter in their civil suits that Rialmo was 20 feet away from the house when he fired the fatal shots. They say shell casings were found on the sidewalk.

The LeGrier family’s attorney, Bill Foutris, has contended the bat did not justify the shooting.

“There was no way he was posing a threat to the officer. He didn’t have a gun. He didn’t have a knife. He certainly didn’t have any kind of a weapon that could have presented a threat to an officer who was 20, 30 feet away,” he said after filing the LeGrier family’s lawsuit against the city.

Toxicology tests show LeGrier tested positive for “Delta-9 TCH ... an active ingredient of marijuana.”

Autopsy results show LeGrier was shot in the left side of his chest, in the lower left side of his back, in his right buttock and in his left arm, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner report, and he also sustained graze wounds to his chest and shoulder.

After learning Rialmo intended to file a countersuit, Foutris told CBS Chicago the move was a desperate attempt to deflect attention from an unjustified shooting.