Audio calls released Monday revealed that just minutes before Chicago police fatally shot neighbors Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones, LeGrier called 911 three times, requesting help from police. “I need an officer”, Antonio LeGrier is heard saying at the beginning of the call.
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LeGrier called 911 asking that a police officer be sent to his address.
Meantime, the attorney for Officer Robert Rialmo, Joel Brodsky, says he’ll be filing a counter claim against the estate of Quintonio LeGrier, because LeGrier, attacked the officer.
Pressed three times to explain what was wrong, Mr. LeGrier finally said, “Someone is threatening my life”, then pleaded for an officer to be sent, as the dispatcher continued to seek his last name.
“During the course of this investigation, the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communication recently identified and provided IPRA with two additional 911 calls placed by Quintonio LeGrier prior to the incident”, IPRA said in a news release.
LeGrier was shot six times by police in the stairwell of his father’s West Side apartment building when officers entered the premises in the early hours of December 26.
“Yeah, when you answer the question”, the 911 operator said.
Dis: “I’m talking to you?”
“As soon as you answer these questions”.
A minute after LeGrier’s third call ends, his father calls 911 to report: “My son’s attempting to break inside my bedroom door”. LeGrier was also killed in the shooting after allegedly threatening his father with a metal baseball bat. “This is the not way 911 calls should be handled”. Police have declared her death an accident. Police responded only after LeGrier’s father placed a fourth call, and when they arrived on the scene, shot the teen and his 55-year-old neighbor to death.
‘The first time he calls he’s hung up on and frankly that’s just disgusting behavior, ‘ the family’s lawyer, Basileios Foutris, told the Chicago Tribune on Tuesday. While officers were responding, Antonio LeGrier made his 911 call.
“Every single employee of the City of Chicago Quintonio encountered reacted improperly”, Foutris said.
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She added: “Call-takers follow specific protocols and may only terminate a call as a last resort”. We discovered these two calls – and the issues surrounding them, during our own internal review and immediately started an internal disciplinary process – turned them over to the Independent Police Review Authority, and we will continue to partner with them as they investigate this case.
