The Chicago Police Department was under fire again Saturday, the day after Christmas, after cops responding to a domestic disturbance call fatally shot a 19-year-old college student Quintonio LeGrier and accidentally killed a 55-year-old mother of five Bettie jones.
Officers were summoned to the West Garfield Park home about 4:20 a.m. after Quintonio LeGrier, 19, started having one of his mental episodes.
Chicago police initially released few details on the shooting, saying only that an officer opened fire after they were “confronted by a combative subject.” But late Saturday, the department admitted that Jones was struck by a bullet meant for LeGrier. LeGrier’s father told reporters he had called the police and then Jones — warning her not to open her door until the officers showed up.
Before arriving at the scene on Saturday, the officers were told by a dispatcher that the domestic disturbance involved a teen wielding a baseball bat. dispatcher said it was “also coming in as a domestic. The 19-year-old son is banging on his bedroom door with a baseball bat.”
Once cops arrived, Antontio LeGrier said, he started heading downstairs when he heard the crack of gunfire.
By the time he made it to the ground floor, his son and Jones were lying motionless in the foyer.
The officer, LeGrier said, was yelling, “no, no, no.”
“In my opinion, he knew he had messed up. It was senseless,” Antonio LeGrier, 47, told the Chicago Sun-Times. “He knew he had shot, blindly, recklessly into the doorway and now two people are dead because of it.”
Jones’ daughter Latisha said she was jolted awake by the sound of gunfire — and then found her mother splayed out on the floor of their apartment, bleeding from the neck.
“She wasn’t saying anything,” Latisha Jones said. “I had to keep checking for a pulse.”
LeGrier’s mother, Janet Cooksey, who was not present at the time of the shooting, lashed out at the officers for taking the life of her only son. She said Quintonio was an engineering student at Northern Illinois University who was dealing with mental issues.
“We’re thinking the police are going to service us, take him to the hospital,” Cooksey told the Chicago Tribune. “They took his life.”
The chicago police are currently working on the investigation.