Chicago Copper Shoots Two (Including Innocent Neighbor)

Quintonio Legrier and Bettie Jones

A Chicago police officer shot and killed two people early Saturday while responding to a domestic disturbance call on the city’s West Side, reports NyPo.

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 was Legrier’s neighbor, died at a different hospital at 5:14 a.m.

Legrier’s mother, Janet Cooksey, told the Chicago Tribune that her son was studying engineering at Northern Illinois University. She said he graduated from Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy in Chicago and “was going somewhere.”

Cooksey, who was not present at the time of the shooting, told the Chicago Tribune that her son had been dealing with mental issues.

“We’re thinking the police are going to service us, take him to the hospital. They took his life,” she said.

She said her son “didn’t have a gun. He had a bat.”

When Antonio LeGrier, Quintono's father, returned to his West Garfield Park apartment early Saturday, he said he noticed his son appeared to be a “little agitated.”

Then at 4:15 a.m. Saturday, the older LeGrier heard a loud banging on his locked bedroom door and his son said, “You’re not going to scare me.”

LeGrier said his son tried to bust the door open, but he kept him from breaking it down and called for police.

Soon, there was silence.

The father said he then called Jones, who lived a floor below. He said he warned her, “My son is a little irate. Do not open the door unless the police arrive.”

LeGrier said Jones told him she saw his son outside with a baseball bat.

When police arrived, the father said he heard  Jones yell, “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa!”

As the father came to the third step as he made his way down from the second floor, he heard the gunshots.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times,the fathe. said the cop knew he “messed up” after firing at his son and the 55-year-old neighbor.

LeGrier told the Sun-Times he saw the white or Hispanic officer standing on the grass 30 feet from the bodies after he heard the gun shots.

“F—, no, no, no. I thought he was lunging at me with the [baseball] bat,” LeGrier said the officer yelled following the shooting.

“In my opinion, he knew he had messed up. It was senseless,” LeGrier, 47, said of the copper who had fired.

“He knew he had shot, blindly, recklessly into the doorway and now two people are dead because of it.”

 -RW