May 11--Chicago police officers shot and killed a mentally ill man as he hid from them in his mother's basement, the woman alleged in a federal lawsuit Tuesday, accusing the cops of conspiring to cover up their actions.
Lenora Bonds alleges she called police on Oct. 23, 2013, to ask for help for her son, Terrance Harris, who had been diagnosed with psychiatric problems. The lawsuit says Bonds met the officers outside her Rosemoor neighborhood home to assure them everything was "fine," but that her son was acting differently than normal.
The officers responded by breaking down her unlocked front door, smashing several windows and storming into the basement where Harris was hiding, the lawsuit states.
"While Mr. Harris crouched next to the furnace attempting to hide, officers with the Chicago Police Department opened fire from several angles, shooting through the thin wall that separated them from the area where Mr. Harris was hiding," the lawsuit alleges.
Harris was shot 28 times, with bullets hitting him in the head, neck, arm, back, chest, stomach, leg, thigh and buttock, according to autopsy records. No drugs were found in his system.
At the time of shooting, police said Harris was armed with two knives -- including an 11-inch butcher's knife -- when officers arrived at the house. He stabbed both his mother and a police officer before retreating to the basement and barricading himself in a furnace room, according to an autopsy report obtained by the Tribune.
Police union spokesman Pat Camden told reporters in 2013 that officers followed Harris to the basement because they smelled gas and believed the house could explode. After entering the furnace room, Harris lunged at the officers and they opened fire, Camden said.
Bonds' attorney Daniel Nixa rejected statements that Harris stabbed anyone or that he was attempting to blow up the home via a natural gas leak.
The lawsuit alleges that the officers delayed in getting Harris medical treatment and then conspired to create a story that would justify the shooting.
"Almost immediately after the shooting, officers on scene, and shortly thereafter acting in conjunction with supervisors, detectives, and FOP officials, began to create a false narrative to justify why officers entered the house and why officers used deadly force on an unarmed man," the lawsuit states.
Bonds initially filed a pro se lawsuit in Cook County court last year, but the suit filed Tuesday says it was dismissed because she missed a court date that she didn't know had been scheduled. The city will argue it should be dismissed because the two-year statute of limitations has passed, Law Department spokesman Bill McCaffrey said.
McCaffrey declined to comment on the allegations in Bond's federal lawsuit.
The three officers who fired their guns were later cleared by the Independent Police Review Authority, a city agency that investigates all police-involved shootings. Though other officers were in the house at the time of the shooting, several of them told IPRA investigators they did not have a clear view of Harris, the officers who fired or both.
The lawsuit states Bonds wrote several letters to law enforcement and city officials to find out the outcome of the investigation, but she never received a response.
"In short, she has never received any official explanation about what happened inside of her home that led officers to open fire on her unarmed son," the suit states.
sstclair@tribpub.com
