Chicago police officer responding to call fatally shoots two
CHICAGO – A Chicago police officer shot and killed two people early Saturday while responding to a domestic disturbance call on the city’s West Side, police said.
The shooting happened about 4:25 a.m. after officers who responded to the call “were confronted by a combative subject,” the Chicago Police Department said in a statement. The medical examiner’s office and family members said Quintonio LeGrier, a 19-year-old college student, was pronounced dead at a hospital at 4:51 a.m. and Bettie Jones, a 55-year-old mother of five who lived downstairs from the apartment where LeGrier was staying, died at a different hospital at 5:14 a.m.
Both LeGrier and Jones were black, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said. Police did not immediately disclose the race of the officer, nor how long the officer has been with the department or the officer’s current work status.
Police officials say Jones was shot by accident.
The Chicago Police Department is the subject of a federal civil rights investigation, which came after the release of a video showing white officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald 16 times in 2014. Van Dyke faces six counts of first-degree murder and one of official misconduct in the death of McDonald and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday. Officials have said the investigation will look into patterns of racial disparity in the use of force and review how the department disciplines officers and handles misconduct accusations.
LeGrier’s father told the Chicago Sun-Times he had invited his son to a family holiday gathering before the shooting but he chose not to go. Antonio LeGrier said when he returned to his second-floor apartment early Saturday, Quintonio appeared to be a “little agitated.”
He said he heard loud banging on his locked bedroom door about 4:15 a.m. and that his son said, “You’re not going to scare me.” He said Quintonio tried to break the door open, but he kept him from doing so and called police.
The father said he called Jones, who lived a floor below, and warned her that his son was a “little irate” and not to open the door unless police arrived. He said Jones told him she saw Quintonio outside with a baseball bat.
When police arrived, Antonio LeGrier said he heard Jones yell, “Whoa, Whoa Whoa!” He said he heard shots as he came down from the second floor and then saw his son and Jones lying in the foyer.
Antonio LeGrier said his son had emotional problems after spending most of his childhood in foster care, but that it didn’t warrant him being shot and killed.