Nov. 21--The morning after he was charged for his role in the death of a knife-wielding man in his 90s, Park Forest police Officer Craig Taylor sat handcuffed to a bench with other detainees.
As he waited for his name to be called in bond court, Taylor said he thought about how his path as a police officer with an unblemished record had led him to this moment. A wave of humiliation, shock and fear washed over him.
But one emotion Taylor said he did not feel was self-doubt.
"My job was to protect and serve," he told the Tribune, "and that's what I did that night."
Taylor faces trial as soon as early next year on a felony charge of reckless conduct for firing five beanbag rounds in rapid succession at John Wrana Jr., a World War II veteran who refused to drop a knife with a 7-inch blade in his assisted-living apartment. He died about five hours later, though Taylor's lawyer contends Wrana refused an operation that could have easily repaired the internal bleeding.
In bringing a rare criminal charge against an on-duty police officer, Cook County prosecutors criticized Park Forest police, saying they hurriedly devised a plan to enter Wrana's apartment by force while armed with a shield, Tasers, a shotgun filled with less lethal beanbag rounds as well as regular service weapons.
But a Tribune review of state police interviews of key witnesses and the opinions of experts on police procedure suggests prosecutors face a complicated case to prove that Taylor used more force than reasonable.
Taylor, one of five Park Forest police officers at the scene, had been instructed by a superior to fire the beanbag rounds if the Taser failed to subdue Wrana. After a commander missed with the Taser, Wrana continued to move toward the officers, prompting Taylor to order him to drop the knife. When Wrana refused, Taylor opened fire -- and kept firing until Wrana dropped the knife.
All the officers told state police investigators that they feared for their lives as Wrana ignored their repeated warnings and approached them with the serrated knife raised above his head. Two paramedics and retirement home staff members buttressed the officers' accounts.
In addition, an expert hired by the defense held that the officers could have used deadly force, meaning Taylor would have been justified to shoot the knife-wielding Wrana with his service weapon, let alone the shotgun that fired the beanbag rounds, considered nonlethal. Perhaps more troubling for the prosecution, a police consultant whom the state's attorney's office sought as its expert witness, also concluded that the officers followed proper procedure, according to a letter that the prosecutor assigned to the case sent Taylor's attorney.
In his first public comments since being charged, Taylor, an 11-year police veteran, told the Tribune he was stunned on learning of Wrana's death and grew emotional later that night at home. But he insisted his actions were justified, saying he followed his superior's instructions and did his job "by the book."
He said he is looking forward to his trial in order to clear his name.
"I want people to know the facts," Taylor, 44, said in his attorney's office. "I want people to know the type of individual that I am."
A violent standoff
The trial will pit sympathetic characters on both sides.
Wrana, who died weeks shy of his 96th birthday, served in Burma and India during World War II before his honorable discharge from the Army as a sergeant in 1946, according to military records. He and his wife, Helen, were married for about 35 years, living much of the time in California. She died in 2005. Wrana had moved into Victory Centre about three months before his death.
Taylor, who grew up on Chicago's Southeast Side, said he was raised by a strict single mother who insisted he spend weekends at church. He sang in the church choir, played baseball and joined the Boy Scouts.
He said his interest in criminal justice grew after he joined the Army's National Guard in 1990 as a way to pay for college. Taylor said he took a full-time job with Pepsi instead of completing college but continued volunteering in the military one weekend a month for six years of active duty.
His police personnel file, obtained through a public records request, shows no serious infractions or disciplinary actions since he joined the department in 2004. In fact, a training officer urged Taylor in his first year to be more aggressive, the records show. According to court records, he has never been sued for misconduct as an officer. Taylor said he has never had to use his service weapon.
The two men's paths crossed July 26, 2013. The following account comes from state police interviews of staff, paramedics and police:
In recent days, Wrana had been behaving uncharacteristically, claiming a prostitution ring was operating at the retirement home and that he had ties to organized crime and the president. Staffers asked him for a urine sample to determine if a medical problem were to blame.
The resident care manager, Brandy Bonner, also a nurse, said she called for a private ambulance to take Wrana to the hospital after he became upset at the request and "started talking about slitting people's throats."
Bonner said she called 911 after paramedics arrived and Wrana fought with them over going to the hospital. The paramedics said Wrana attacked them with a metal cane.
Paramedic Chya Hughes said Wrana "jumped out of the chair with the speed of an MMA (mixed martial arts) fighter," the state police report said. "Hughes stated she was amazed at how quickly Wrana moved."
Officers Mitchell Greer and Charlie Hoskins, who arrived at 8:45 p.m., said they tried to calm Wrana but that he became more threatening, chopping at a chair with a 2-foot-long metal shoehorn the officers mistook for a possible machete.
They retreated and called a supervisor, Cpl. Lloyd Elliot, who arrived three minutes later. Elliot said he unlocked Wrana's door and found him standing 10 to 12 feet away, holding a knife over his head. He said Wrana threatened to throw it and cut him if they didn't leave, so they again retreated, and the corporal radioed his commander to come with a riot-control shield.
Cmdr. Michael Baugh, who happened to be at the shooting range with Taylor at the time, said he told Taylor to bring the 12-gauge beanbag shotgun.
On his arrival at about 8:57 p.m., Baugh said he told Wrana through his closed door to drop the weapon, but Wrana responded, "Don't come in or I'll throw the knife at you."
With Wrana growing more agitated, Baugh said he devised a plan. In his state police interview, Taylor said Baugh told the other officers that Baugh would lead the way into the apartment with the shield and deploy the Taser. If that didn't disable Wrana, Taylor would fire the less lethal shotgun. If Wrana was still threatening the officers with the knife, Elliot would use his handgun. Greer and Hoskins would have their hands free so they could apprehend Wrana once he was subdued.
When he opened the door, Baugh said Wrana stood about six to eight feet away, stepping back and forth, and continuing to threaten to harm the officers.
Holding the shield in one hand and the Taser in the other, Baugh tried to shock Wrana, but the prongs did not hit him. When Wrana again came at the officers, Taylor told state police, he fired one beanbag round, striking Wrana in the abdomen, but he said it appeared to have no effect on him. As Wrana continued to approach, Taylor said he fired four more times until Wrana -- still standing -- dropped the knife.
Prosecutors pointed out later that the other officers had Tasers that they could have fired before Taylor shot the beanbag rounds.
As another team of paramedics took a conscious Wrana out of the facility to the hospital, he complained of stomach pain and continued making threats, paramedics and staff told state police.
Between the time that Taylor and the commander arrived on the scene and paramedics were called to treat Wrana, just seven minutes had passed -- a point that prosecutors hammered home in charging Taylor.
Debating reasonable force
To win a conviction, prosecutors have to prove that Taylor recklessly "caused bodily harm to or endangered" Wrana's safety, not that his actions led to his death. Yet the issue promises to be contentious at trial nonetheless.
The attending trauma surgeon at Advocate Christ Medical Center who treated Wrana told state police that his injury likely would not have been fatal if he had agreed to an operation. Dr. Steven Salzman said the internal bleeding would be "easy to repair."
Salzman said Wrana had a do-not-resuscitate order and refused surgery unless guaranteed he'd be strong enough to awake free from a ventilator. Salzman said he pleaded with Wrana, who appeared lucid, to no avail.
"Wrana told Dr. Salzman (he) was ready to die and Dr. Salzman should let (him) die," according to the state police report.
Doctors also called Wrana's stepdaughter, Sharon Mangerson, in hopes she could persuade him to undergo the surgery. Mangerson spoke by telephone to Wrana, but Wrana didn't budge and Mangerson said she would honor his decision, Salzman told state police.
In announcing the charges in April, State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said police officers must balance the use of force with the need for force.
"Given the other viable options to resolve the matter and the number of shots fired at this senior citizen at close range in rapid succession, we believe this officer's conduct to be reckless," Alvarez said.
Prosecutors said police ignored other viable options to de-escalate the confrontation, such as leaving the elderly Wrana alone in his room to cool down. But Taylor's attorney, Terry Ekl , said police found themselves in a no-win situation. If officers didn't act swiftly and Wrana hurt himself with the knife, police would be accused of negligence, he said.
"All of those other options were not viable or reasonable under the circumstances in this case," Ekl said.
Another issue that is sure to be hard-fought at trial is Taylor's proximity to Wrana -- within six to eight feet -- when he opened fire. According to prosecutors, the manufacturer's optimum firing distance is a minimum of 15 feet. But a defense expert certified to teach police instructors how to train officers on the use of a beanbag-round shotgun said the device may be fired at a closer distance if circumstances justify it -- as in this case, he said.
Ekl argues that Taylor properly fired at the least lethal area -- the abdomen -- and then aimed at knocking the knife out of Wrana's hand. Four of the rounds hit Wrana, Ekl said.
But Nicholas Grapsas, the Wrana family attorney who filed a lawsuit over his death, called the police reaction to a 95-year-old man with limited mobility as "horrific and unnecessary."
"When the police arrived, he was locked in his apartment alone behind a closed door," Grapsas said. "He was endangering no one and he was not an imminent threat to anyone. ... There was absolutely no reason for the Park Forest police and Officer Taylor to force entry and implement a full police tactical response and shoot him five times with a 12-gauge shotgun that fires beanbags at 190 mph."
Protector or reckless?
Grapsas and Wrana's relatives and friends argue that all the officers, not just Taylor, should face criminal charges.
Patrick Browne often visited Wrana at the south suburban center, where they played pinochle and gin rummy. The Glenwood man called Wrana friendly and intelligent and said he deserved better treatment from police.
"They came in as a SWAT team on a 95-year-old man," he said. "It was poor police work and over-the-top."
Browne, 82, said Wrana was "perfectly lucid" just 24 hours earlier, when the two last played cards.
"In fact, he beat me," he said.
In the interview with the Tribune, Taylor said he was stunned when he was criminally charged. At first he thought the supervisor who told him was joking -- it was April Fool's Day, after all.
Taylor, scheduled to appear in court Friday, has been placed on paid desk duty.
He said the support he has received from fellow officers and the community has sustained him and his wife, a sixth-grade math teacher. The father of five choked up when describing the stress on his family.
"My youngest daughter asked me, 'Daddy, why are they arresting you for doing what you were told to do?' " he said. "And my answer was, 'I don't know, but daddy's going to be OK.' "
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