In a case fraught with significance for Chicago cops, reform advocates and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, lawyers are set to make opening arguments Monday at a trial stemming from the highly publicized fatal police shooting of a teenager with a baseball bat and the innocent bystander standing behind him.
Jurors at the Daley Center will be asked to decide whether to hold the city liable for the death of Quintonio LeGrier, and if so, how much money his family should get. Officer Robert Rialmo killed the 19-year-old as police responded to a domestic incident in the early morning hours the day after Christmas 2015. Neighbor Bettie Jones, 55, was struck and killed, and city lawyers this month avoided a trial with her family by reaching a tentative big-dollar settlement.
The political heat surrounding the shooting has been high, in part because it took place just a month after a judge had forced Emanuel to release footage of a white officer shooting black teen Laquan McDonald 16 times. At the time, the mayor was working to move past weeks of street protests, accusations of a cover-up and calls for his resignation. When LeGrier became the first person shot and killed by police following the McDonald video release, Emanuel cut short a family vacation in Cuba and returned to Chicago to deal with the aftermath.
Since then, the case has divided the Emanuel administration, with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability ruling the shooting unjustified and police Superintendent Eddie Johnson determining it was warranted. The Emanuel-appointed Chicago Police Board will decide whether to fire Rialmo.
The possibility that an officer could be fired for shooting someone who carried a bat has galvanized the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police. More than 100 off-duty police officers marched on City Hall during the May City Council meeting to protest Rialmo’s treatment, among other issues. Union officials have argued Rialmo’s case shows that the Emanuel administration has hamstrung cops.
Union President Kevin Graham said Friday that union officials “believe (Rialmo) used force appropriate to the threat.” The city should not settle the LeGrier suit, Graham said.
“Let’s face it, you get hit with a baseball bat, you’ve got troubles,” he said. “That’s deadly force.”
African-American activists, meanwhile, have called for Rialmo’s firing, questioned the mayor’s commitment to police reform and argued the city should settle the suit.
For the re-election-seeking Emanuel, the trial raises the prospect of a week or more of media coverage and public conversation about the shooting of two black people by a white officer who has alleged in court that the city failed to properly train him. The mayor’s challengers, meanwhile, have criticized him both for his policing strategy for reducing violent crime and his efforts at reforming the troubled department.
Emanuel has cast the unhappiness of police and activists as evidence he is striking an appropriate balance.
“My view is we’re down the middle of the fairway in getting what I think is a right balance and that balance is between both doing reform that is necessary … and also making sure that we have the right type of policing, in this effort,” the mayor said after last month’s council meeting.
The proposed $16 million settlement with the Jones family, which would be one of the largest payouts for a police shooting in city history, ended litigation over the case’s less-divisive portion. The city’s lawyers, however, have shown no sign they’re looking at settling the LeGrier family’s suit, though City Hall sometimes settles them just before or even during trial.
Complicating the upcoming trial, Rialmo retained his own lawyer, Joel Brodsky, an unorthodox litigator recently fined $50,000 and ordered into anger management for his conduct in a federal lawsuit, a punishment he is appealing. While Brodsky has clashed with the city’s lawyers, the city likely would have to cover the cost of a jury verdict in the LeGrier family’s favor.
In an unusual twist, Brodsky also has sued the city on Rialmo’s behalf, alleging the officer was poorly trained. The trial for that lawsuit is set to proceed alongside the LeGrier family’s case.
LeGrier family attorney Basileios Foutris declined to comment, as did a Law Department spokesman.
Rialmo, who is on paid desk duty, remains under investigation for a December 2017 bar fight in which he punched two men in the face in an altercation caught on security video. Brodsky has said Rialmo was defending himself.
LeGrier’s shooting unfolded as Rialmo and his partner responded about 4:30 a.m. Dec. 26, 2015, to a disturbance at an apartment in the 4700 block of West Erie Street where the teen was staying with his father. LeGrier apparently was plagued by mental health problems, and he’d had run-ins with police, records show.
Jones, the downstairs neighbor, pointed officers to the second floor. LeGrier then came down an interior flight of stairs with an aluminum baseball bat, according to an analysis released last year by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office, which declined to bring criminal charges against Rialmo. As Rialmo backed down some porch stairs, he fired his 9 mm semi-automatic pistol eight times, hitting LeGrier six times, according to prosecutors. Jones, who stood behind the teen, was shot in the chest, prosecutors said. LeGrier and Jones collapsed in the vestibule.
Rialmo’s parter, Anthony LaPalermo, said in a sworn deposition that he was looking down and did not see the shooting, though he said he saw LeGrier with the bat beforehand, according to COPA.
A key question at trial will likely be whether Rialmo reasonably believed he needed to shoot to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or another. That means the proceedings could focus in part on how far Rialmo was from LeGrier.
Rialmo gave differing statements, but in certain accounts placed himself on the porch steps when he fired. COPA investigators determined that the evidence — including witness statements and shell casings — indicated the officer was between the porch steps and the sidewalk when he fired, farther from LeGrier than he’d have been if he shot from the porch.
In his ruling, police Superintendent Johnson countered that LeGrier was a dangerous assailant, whether Rialmo fired from the porch steps or elsewhere. Johnson questioned the credibility of witnesses and said the shell casings have little evidentiary value, since the scene was trampled by paramedics and others who might have scattered them.
There’s also been debate as to whether LeGrier swung the bat at Rialmo, as the officer has alleged. COPA investigators noted that the detective who interviewed Rialmo shortly after the shooting said the officer did not say LeGrier swung the bat, though Rialmo later said the teen swung it. Johnson, however, put more credence in Rialmo’s allegation that LeGrier swung the bat.
The police union’s Graham said he believes Rialmo’s account, despite any discrepancies.
“I want to make sure that everyone understands this: Being a shooting officer where someone dies, it stays with you the rest of your life. You never forget that,” he said. “Nobody’s trying to hide anything. It’s a very traumatic event.”
The jury is not expected to hear about COPA’s or Johnson’s conclusions, and Emanuel and the superintendent are not anticipated witnesses. Jurors also aren’t expected to hear about Rialmo’s bar fight or the Police Department’s alleged “code of silence,” which has been central to other cases.
The case is atypical in that the city’s lawyers are openly at odds with Rialmo’s attorney, Brodsky, who rose to prominence by representing former Bolingbrook cop Drew Peterson, now a convicted murderer. In addition to suing the city on Rialmo’s behalf, Brodsky has consistently criticized city officials for their treatment of his client.
In court last week, a private lawyer for the city, Brian Gainer, grew visibly frustrated with Brodsky’s repeated interjections during arguments over whether Judge Rena Marie Van Tine should allow Brodsky’s trial strategy. Brodsky has said he and Rialmo do not plan to be present for parts of the trial — an unconventional move for a defendant and his lawyer. Brodsky declined to explain his strategy’s potential benefits.
Gainer angrily noted that Brodsky had not objected to motions seeking admittance of evidence that could be unfavorable to Rialmo and the city. “It’s clear to me that the trial strategy is spite for the city,” Gainer said.
Brodsky accused the city’s lawyers of “mismanagement of this case,” and said he should be able to use any trial strategy he wants. “I’m sorry they don’t like it,” he said. “Too bad.”
Van Tine allowed Brodsky’s approach after Rialmo confirmed that he understood his lawyer’s tack.
In a phone interview, Brodsky voiced confidence the jury would side with Rialmo.
“The only fact that they gotta see that I see is that that kid came bounding down the stairs with a baseball bat … and he got shot. This is not exactly a surprise,” Brodsky said.
MORE COVERAGE:
Top cop Eddie Johnson under oath: ‘Never heard an officer talk about code of silence’ “
City reaches $16 million settlement over innocent bystander shot dead by cop “
Chicago top cop rejects watchdog agency recommendation that he fire officer in 2015 fatal shooting “
Tribune coverage: The Quintonio LeGrier, Bettie Jones shootings “
