The Cook County State’s Attorney’s office said Friday that no criminal charges would be brought against the Chicago police officer who fatally shot a baseball bat-wielding teen and — mistakenly — a grandmother standing by him.
An statement issued by the office said prosecutors found insufficient evidence to disprove that Officer Robert Rialmo acted in self-defense.
"I have always known in my heart that I did not do anything wrong," Rialmo’s attorney quoted the officer as saying on hearing he would not be criminally charged.
The shooting occurred about 4:30 a.m. the day after Christmas 2015 as Rialmo and his partner were responding to four 911 calls of a domestic disturbance at an apartment in the 4700 block of West Erie Street.
PDF: Full text of report into fatal shooting of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones Investigtion into fatal shooting of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones (PDF) Investigtion into fatal shooting of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones (Text) Investigtion into fatal shooting of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones (PDF) Investigtion into fatal shooting of Quintonio LeGrier and Bettie Jones (Text)Read the story
According to Rialmo’s initial account — given to detectives about an hour and a half after the shooting — neighbor Bettie Jones had answered the door and pointed the officers to an upstairs apartment. As she turned to walk back to her unit, Quintonio LeGrier, 19, emerged from the doorway brandishing a bat over his head, gripped in both hands, according to Rialmo’s account.
Rialmo said he started backing down the stairs and drew his service weapon while ordering LeGrier to drop the bat. Saying he was in fear of his life, Rialmo fired eight shots.
Rialmo said he was standing at the base of the porch stairs by the time he stopped firing. When he returned to the porch, he saw Jones, 55, lying on her back with her legs sticking into the vestibule.
In a statement posted on Facebook, Rialmo’s lawyer, Joel Brodsky, said his client was "relieved" by the decision not to charge him.
"I can’t ever do anything to bring Ms. Jones or Quintonio LeGrier back, but it was not my fault," the statement quoted Rialmo as saying. "I wish that Mr. LeGrier would have been able to get help and treatment for his mental illness, and that the situation did not escalate to the point where I had no choice but to use deadly force."
"I was forced to take two human lives, and I will have to live with that for the rest of my life," Rialmo said in the statement "Being right does not make it any less of a tragedy that two people are dead and I was the cause of their deaths."
Some of Rialmo’s comments were directed to the LeGrier and Jones families.
"If something like that happened to my mother or son, there is nothing anyone could say that would make me understand, so I don’t expect you to forgive me or understand what I did," the statement read. "I just want you to know that I wish I didn’t have to shoot, but I had no choice. I think about what happened to Betty and Quintonio every day."
State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office said she played no part in the decision because her previous employer — the Chicago law firm of Power, Rogers & Smith — represents Jones’ family in a pending lawsuit.
Still, it is among the first decisions her administration has had to make on a police shooting. Foxx unseated incumbent Anita Alvarez after heavily criticizing her handling of the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
Alvarez charged Officer Jason Van Dyke with first-degree murder late in 2015, but she filed the charges 13 months after McDonald was killed and hours before the city’s court-ordered release of video of Van Dyke shooting him 16 times. The video prompted prolonged protests, calls for Alvarez’s resignation and the recently completed U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the Police Department.
Most recently, Foxx’s office last month filed charges of first-degree murder against Officer Lowell Houser, who was off-duty when he shot a 38-year-old man on the Northwest Side on Jan. 2.
Criminal charges against local police in shootings – on- or off-duty – have been rare, and Cook County prosecutors have recently lost multiple cases against off-duty cops who shot people.
On Friday afternoon, the state’s attorney’s office addressed the shooting of LeGrier and Jones by posting a legal memorandum on its website detailing the facts of the case and concluding prosecutors would not have been able to meet their burden of proof.
The memorandum said securing a conviction would require proving that Rialmo did not reasonably believe he or his partner were in imminent danger and that a baseball bat can be considered a deadly weapon.
"The uncontroverted evidence from the investigation into the shooting establishes that LeGrier was armed with an aluminum baseball bat when the officers encountered him and LeGrier wielded the bat in a threatening manner while in their close proximity," the statement said.
The memorandum went on to say that Illinois law holds that a person is not criminally liable for killing a bystander while shooting in self-defense, so Rialmo couldn’t be charged for killing Jones for the same reason he couldn’t be prosecuted for LeGrier’s death.
The memorandum noted, however, that the state’s attorney’s office’s decision does not hinder disciplinary investigations or lawsuits by the families of LeGrier and Jones, both of which have lower standards of proof.
Rialmo’s future with the department remains uncertain; he remains on desk duty as the Independent Police Review Authority continues to investigate. His case is an early test of a Police Department and officer oversight system that have undergone constant upheaval in the 14 months since the video of McDonald’s shooting spurred promises of reform.
Even as the investigation continued into the LeGrier and Jones shooting, Rialmo and his handling by the Police Department have repeatedly generated controversy.
The officer last year took the rare step of suing the city, claiming he shot the two in part because he was inadequately trained.
Rialmo was supposed to be on indefinite desk duty pending IPRA completing its investigation of the shooting.
But the Tribune revealed in November that the department – despite the ongoing investigation and Rialmo’s allegation that he was badly trained – had returned him to the street for several months over the summer and fall, detailing him to a citywide unit that intervened in potentially violent situations.
Department officials described his redeployment as the result of an administrative error at a Northwest Side district and said a commander had been given a written reprimand, one of the lightest possible punishments involving no mandatory time off or financial consequence.
Rialmo was put back on desk duty in October, police officials said.
Brodsky, Rialmo’s lawyer, has alleged in court filings that the department pulled Rialmo from the street in retaliation because the officer hired his own lawyer and sued the department.
jgorner@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @JeremyGorner
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