The world is filled with sad and bizarre stories but one that immediately caught our eye occurred in Chicago and it revolves around the killing of a mentally ill teen, an innocent bystander and a policeman who wants money to help him cope with it all.
The Daily News was kind enough to provide us with the details of the lawsuit filed by the policeman.
A Chicago cop who fatally shot a mentally ill college student in December — as well as the teen’s unsuspecting neighbor — is now suing the dead teen’s family for $10 million, claiming the killings gave him “extreme emotional trauma.”
Officer Robert Rialmo filed the staggering suit Friday over his contested killing of 19-year-old Quintonio LeGrier, a Northern Illinois University sophomore. The officer also accidentally killed Bettie Jones, 55, who was standing nearby, according to police.
Before we give our thoughts on the situation, we’d like to present the full rundown of events given by the New York Daily News:
Rialmo shot LeGrier six times on Dec. 26 after the teen made three calls to 911,making vague but distressed remarks about an “emergency” he said needed a police response. The gunfire erupted after LeGrier rushed at the officer while swinging a baseball bat, according to police, with one shot passing through the teen and striking his neighbor.
Rialmo’s suit says LeGrier “took a full swing” with the bat at Rialmo after the officer arrived at his home, just missing the cop’s head by a few inches. After Rialmo stepped back and LeGrier refused orders to drop the bat, the teen followed the officer outside and took another swing, forcing Rialmo to act in self-defense, the suit says.
A gun and a bat don’t hold equal weight in my opinion but if the cop did feel threatened he has the right to defend himself. Why that defense needed to be fatal I still don’t understand. Policemen go through many hours of firearm training and a simple shot to the leg or shoulder would’ve slowed the teen. Shooting someone 6 times and taking the life of another is careless, but the absurdity doesn’t stop there.
“After this coward shot a teenager in the back … he has the temerity to sue him?” LeGrier’s family attorney, Basileios Foutris told the Chicago Tribune.
“That’s a new low for the Chicago Police Department.”
I understand that these situations take a toll on everyone involved but to claim that you need to be compensated financially by the family of someone who was murdered by your hands is simply disrespectful.
This was the statement given by Rialmo’s attorneys:
“Rialmo reasonably believed that if he did not use deadly force against LeGrier, that LeGrier would kill him,” the suit says.
The two deaths that resulted from the fatal encounter will “continue to cause…extreme emotional trauma” to the officer, according to the suit, which asks for a “sum in excess of $10,000,000” for damages.
Rialmo should be happy to not be in prison and to still have a career in law enforcement after the excessive use of force he displayed. I don’t see how this suit holds up in court but the sheer audacity Rialmo shows by filing it reveals all we need to know about his character.
