The counterclaim provides Rialmo’s version of the shooting which contradicts the LeGrier family’s version. The lawsuit claims that Rialmo fired eight rounds as LeGrier twice swung a bat at his head despite the officer’s orders for the teen to drop the weapon. The LeGrier lawsuit alleges he posed no threat when Mr Rialmo shot him, while the Jones lawsuit says Mr Rialmo fired an indiscriminate “hail of bullets” in her general direction. One shot, according to the suit’s account, passed through LeGrier’s left arm and hit Jones, who was standing out of Rialmo’s field of vision in the building’s doorway. His attorney, Joel Brodsky, said it was important in the charged atmosphere to send a message that police are “not targets for assaults” and “suffer damage like anybody else”.
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“After this coward shot a teenager in the back… he has the temerity to sue him?”
Bettie Jones, 55, was killed accidentally in the incident, which occurred at around 4.25am as police responded to a domestic disturbance call.
A Chicago police officer is suing the family of a teenager he shot in December, claiming his psyche was “traumatized” by the fatal incident. “He’s going through what I would call the normal grieving process for someone who is forced to take a human life”.
Rialmo was shifted to 30 days of mandatory paid administrative duties under a policy implemented after the LeGrier shooting. Foutris told the Chicago Tribune. A neighbor, Bettie Jones, 55, was also killed. “This whole awful event was the result of Quintonio LeGrier trying to take my client’s head off with an aluminium baseball bat”. Rialmo’s lawsuit claims that LeGrier was standing above him on the porch, three feet away, holding the bat in a two-handed grip, ready to swing again.
But in a surprising twist, officer Rialmo filed a counterclaim last week stating physical and emotional trauma.
“Rialmo reasonably believed that if he did not use deadly force against LeGrier, that LeGrier would kill him”, the suit says.
As he began firing, Rialmo did not see or hear Jones behind LeGrier, the suit says.
The lawsuit was filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court.
A lawyer for LeGrier’s estate, Basileios J. Foutris, told the Times that the suit was “pure fantasy”.
Phil Turner, a former federal prosecutor and current defense attorney who is not connected to the case, tells the AP that Rialmo’s lawsuit is very unusual and questioned blaming the victim for an officer’s trauma. The teen’s father Antonio LeGrier was shot in the chest. but survived.
LaTonya Jones, the daughter of Bettie Jones holds a picture of her mother during a vigil outside her home on December 27, 2015 in Chicago, Illinois.
One of the lawyers for Jones’ family has said Rialmo was about 20 feet away when he opened fire.
County prosecutors have asked the FBI to investigate the shooting.
Shortly before Rialmo and other officers arrived on the scene, LeGrier’s father asked Jones, his downstairs tenant, to be on the lookout for police officers and let them into the building when they arrived, according to the families.
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Protests over police tactics and alleged coverups led to the ousting of the Chicago’s top cop previous year, and calls for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to step down.
