Last week I wrote that Robert Rialmo, the Chicago cop who shot and killed Quintonio LeGrier, was planning on suing LeGrier’s estate. Rialmo killed LeGrier December 26, 2015, also accidentally shooting and killing neighbor Bettie Jones, who was standing nearby. Well, Rialmo actually went through with it and filed his suit with the court on Friday, February 5. He’s alleging “extreme emotional trauma” and he’s seeking $10 million in damages.
Rialmo’s suit appears to be the first time that he has offered any details of what occurred in the early morning hours on the day after Christmas, when he and his partner answered a domestic disturbance call. Not surprisingly, this account is much different than the one described by LeGrier’s father Antonio, who was on the scene when his son was killed:
Rialmo’s account differs sharply in key ways from claims made by LeGrier’s father, Antonio LeGrier, who has filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court. That suit — which called the shooting “excessive and unreasonable — claims the teenager “never had possession or control of a weapon” and “never posed a danger of threat or harm,” according to the Tribune.
The suit claims that Rialmo was outside the two-story building when he fired his weapon but that the teenager was inside, the paper reported. LeGrier’s suit also states that while his son lay on the ground bleeding to death, Rialmo “did not do anything to try to provide [him] medical care.”
Antonio LeGrier’s attorney, Basileios Foutris, told the AP that Rialmo’s highly unusual suit — which is a countersuit in the LeGrier case — is “outlandish.”
“After this coward shot a teenager in the back … he has the temerity to sue him?” he said. “That’s a new low for the Chicago Police Department.”
It doesn’t get much lower.